The Once and Future Phantom
by DiscordianSamba
Summary: AU. One hundred years after the Great Amity Park Fire burned the city to the ground, Amity is now at the center of the technological revolution. But the town has not forgotten it's past, as the sealed ghosts of the city have been set free. At the center of it all is Phantom, a strange ghost who has haunted the city since the fire's aftermath.
1. 2110

Author's Note: This is an idea I've been tinkering with for awhile. It's an AU, and it takes place in the future, in 2110! It's probably going to be lighter than other fictions in terms of mood (I'm looking at YOU Black and White), and I'm having fun writing it so far. Lots of fluffy Danny and Sam moments. I am, however, probably going to end up dropping two of my stories (Memory and Reincarnation) in favor for revamping them as original stories, which I think will work better than what I'm currently running with. I extend my apologies to fans of those two stories, but I do hope you guys enjoy my new brainchild! There may be another one coming sometime in the future, which is actually going to be a revamp of a much older story that didn't work out at first.

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The Once and Future Phantom

Chapter One: 2110

"Nobody knows how the Great Amity Park Fire of 2010 began, or even what caused it." A redhead woman spoke, standing on a podium in front of an assembly of high school students. Her pink floral dress looked something from out of a retro movie, as did her hairstyle. It was all rather at odds with what she was telling those assembled. "What is known, however, is that the fire spread quickly, and seemed to burn everything it touched, resulting in an extremely high mortality rate."

Today, the senior class of Casper High School were gathered for a field trip, though they hadn't gone too far from their school campus. There was some grumbling amongst those assembled, complaining that they already knew all of this stuff, or annoyed that the teacher couldn't think up of a better outing. Some of them wanted to hurry up with the lab part of the tour.

Pamela Manson, the presenter, ignored it, and possibly didn't even hear it. The students were gathered near the headquarters of Manson Inc, a company that she co-owned with her husband. To be more precise, they were standing in front of the memorial for the victims of the Great Amity Park Fire.

"All told, there were around four hundred dead, and only around a hundred survivors." Pamela continued. "Ten years after the fire, the city was rebuilt, and the first thing to be erected was this memorial." She told them, motioning back to it with her hand. "We bring you here today, on the anniversary of the fire, both to remember those lives that were lost, and those lives that were saved. Some of whom may very well be your great-great grandparents."

Meanwhile, in the crowd, a black haired girl found herself trying to hide from the speaker, concealing herself behind the back of one of her close friends. Her violet eyes peeked out from behind his back every so often. "Ugh." Seventeen year old Samantha Manson grumbled. "Why does it have to be my mom doing this? If she sees me, she's bound to embarrass me!"

"Oh come on, your mom can't be that bad." The boy she was hiding behind glanced back at her, grinning a little. He had thick, shaggy black hair that reached his shoulders, and azure eyes. Although it was hard to see, obscured underneath his bangs, there was a scar going through his left eye, which appeared to be blind because of it.

"Psh." Sam glared up at him. "Don't give me that, Danny, you know my mother. She would do it in a heartbeat. Now just stay still, I don't want her to see me."

"Right, right." Danny just laughed again. "I'll stay put, I promise. But you know she knows you're here right?" He asked, glancing back at her again. "I don't think she exactly _needs_ to see you to embarrass you."

"Ugh, did you _have _to remind me of that?" Sam asked, glancing up at him. "Jerk. I told you we just shouldn't have come. I told you we should have gone over and hung out at Tucker's."

"I know, I know." Danny glanced back down at her. "But this part of the trip was kind of important to me, Sam. You know that, right?"

The raven haired girl heaved a sigh. "Yeah, I know Danny, sorry." She grinned at him a little then, and gave him a squeeze. "Didn't mean to hurt your feelings, _Inviso-Bill._" She teased him lightly.

Danny returned her grin, reaching back to ruffle her hair. "Shush, don't call me that in public. You'll make me look suspicious. Besides, that name is lame anyways. Nobody calls me that anymore." He pretended to lecture her, but couldn't keep the grin off of his face.

"I think you manage to do a pretty good job of that on your own. You kind of stand out." Sam pointed out, arching an eyebrow. "Do you want to skip the lab tour, then?" She asked. "It's not like you haven't seen it before."

"Yes, thank you." Danny almost sounded relieved at the offer. "No offense, Sam, but I really don't like your parent's lab. It makes me nervous." He admitted. "Not so good with all of that technology stuff."

"Tell me about it, it took you half a year to navigate a cell phone from 2080." She teased him. It was true, though. Even after they had gone out of their way to get the oldest model in the shop, Danny had spent the rest of the day just trying to figure out how to turn the thing on.

"Hey, you don't like all of this tech stuff either." Danny almost pouted, glaring back at her. Sam was well known as being rather 'old-school' when it came to just about everything. Be it old books or movies, she was in love with the past, while everyone else embraced the future. She didn't use modern technology unless it was absolutely necessary.

"Ah, but the difference between you and me is the fact that I'm not actually afraid of it." Sam pointed out, lifting up a finger as she did so. She grinned at her older friend. "Mister Technophobe. It does make me wonder why you live with _Tucker,_ of all people."

"I'm not _afraid _of it, I just don't _like _it." Danny huffed, clearly in denial. "There's a big difference. Anyways, you guys make everything far too complicated."

"Right, right." Sam chuckled. Peering out from behind her friend's back, she noticed that her mother had stepped off the podium and was now motioning for the class to move towards the building near the memorial. "And, I take it that's our cue?"

"Yes, it seems like a fine place for us to take our leave." Danny nodded. Taking Sam's hand, he walked with her until they reached a turning point, and ducked into it with her. They waited for the rest of the class to stream in, before they sneaked out the way the had came.

"You could just turn invisible and fly us away, you know." Sam pointed out, almost seeming a little bit disappointed. She really liked to fly with him. It was like nothing else she had ever experienced. Although there was technology available for that these days, jet packs and hover boards, they were all so impersonal compared to flying with Danny.

Or rather, Phantom. Sam smiled. There was something about having a secret among friends that was always exciting to her, especially one as big as this.

"Someone could have seen me change, you know. For all we know, there could have been a security camera there or something." Danny pointed out. "I'm trying to be inconspicuous, remember?"

"Oh yes, inconspicuous. _That's _why you're wearing a full flight jacket in the middle of summer." She arched an eyebrow, poking his chest. "Not to mention that you're all covered up underneath that, too. You are just the picture of normalcy, Danny." She held up her hands in front of her face, as if making a picture frame. "They could put you next to the word in the dictionary."

"I'd look a lot more suspicious if I wasn't all covered up." Danny shot back. "Besides, it's not like anyone will ever actually figure it out. To everyone at school, I'm just a weird transfer student from the boonies. They have no reason at all to suspect that I'm anything else."

"Like a ghost?" Sam questioned him, glancing over at him with a smile. She had known Danny a long time before he had 'transferred' to Casper High School, ever since she was around four years old, she thought. Danny however... well, Danny was a different story.

Unique, was one way of putting it. To be sure, Danny was one of a kind. She'd never met anyone or anything else like him.

"Yes, like that exactly." Danny told her, as the two headed down the streets of Amity Park. The town was bustling with activity that Friday afternoon, and people were out and about. Overhead, they could hear one of the train cars go by, running on tracks that expanded over the entire city.

Amity Park was a city that was considered the center of the technological revolution. This was thanks in most part to the work of the company that Sam's parents now owned, which they had inherited from their parents, and them for their parents. They had greatly advanced such fields as communications, transit, and computers, and had made several important medical breakthroughs.

There was almost nothing left to remind anyone that for ten years, the town sat as a barren wasteland. It had been ruined by the fire that ran rampant through it, burning almost everything to the ground. There was only one building standing in the current Amity Park today that had stood a hundred years ago, and that was the Fenton Works building, one of the few survivors of the fire that was intact enough to use again. In fact, it looked as if the only thing that had touched it was time, and not fire.

Currently, the Fenton family resided within it's walls. Of the few surviving families, the Fenton family was one of the only ones to actually move back to the new Amity Park. The then fourteen year old daughter of Grace and Richard Fenton, Miranda Fenton, had survived the fire, hidden away in the basement of the house. Nobody knew why the fire had passed the building, save for perhaps Miranda herself. And if she knew, she was always tightlipped about it.

Those that lived there now were Jack and Maddie Fenton, a married couple, and a family of ghost hunters, much like Jack's great-great grandparents. Living with them were their two daughters, Jasmine and Danielle Fenton. The family, save for Jazz, was typically viewed as the town's eccentrics, always prattling on about ghosts. There were still people in living in Amity who were convinced that ghosts did not exist, despite the fact that it had it's own resident ghost.

Phantom.

"Damn, where's that card?" Danny grumbled to himself, as he dug through his pockets, eyebrows knitting together. The two had arrived at Tucker's apartment and were standing in front of his door. "Ah-ha!" Danny grinned, producing a slim white card. "Found it."

The door made a clicking sound once the card was slid through the electronic lock, and Danny opened it up. "Ladies first." He said, stepping aside so that Sam could get in. The raven haired girl grinned and went inside.

"Tucker!" She called out, looking around for their friend. "Hey, Tucker, you in here?" She peered into his bedroom and frowned, turning to Danny. "You think he's in his lab?"

"Is he awake?" Danny asked, closing the door behind them, and pocketing the card. He unzipped his black and white flight jacket, and hung it up on a coat rack near the door. "Come on, I'm sure he won't mind some company down there." He headed towards the back of his apartment and opened a door.

"Hey, Tucker!" Danny called out, spotting his friend. "You alive in here, man?" He asked.

"Huh?" Tucker looked up from his work, seeming surprised to hear someone come in. The African-American teenager turned around, then relaxed, seeing who it was. "Oh, you two. Class over already?" He asked. "I kind of haven't been paying attention to what time it is."

"Do you ever?" Sam asked, taking a seat on one of his spare chairs. The room was practically filled with computers and parts for computers. The nineteen year old was viewed as a prodigy, and he had always been skilled with computers. "No, we're just skipping out on the latter part of the field trip." She told him.

"What, was Danny afraid that a robot was going to jump him?" Tucker asked, setting down his headphones and turning to face his friends.

"I keep telling you, I'm not _afraid_ of technology." Danny huffed, taking a seat. "I just don't like it, that's all."

"Un-huh." Tucker looked skeptical, not buying it for a second. "Dude, I've lived with you for a year now. I know a technophobe when I see one."

"Well, let me just remind you, Tucker," Danny began, arching an eyebrow. "that I could overshadow you right now, and have you knock on Valerie's door in _the nude._"

Tucker turned a bright shade of crimson, while Sam snickered in the background, not doubt picturing it in her head. "Okay, okay." He said, lifting up his hands in defeat. "Point taken, Danny."

"Mm, that's what I thought." Danny laughed. "Don't worry though Tucker, I wouldn't ever do anything _that _embarrassing to you." He assured him, resting his arms on the back of the chair he was sitting backwards in. "Well, maybe."

"So, Tucker, what were you working on?" Sam asked, changing the topic. She scooted her chair a bit over towards Danny, resting her head on his shoulder. "You seemed pretty into it."

"Mm, well, it's not so much of a project I'm working on." Tucker told them. "More like something weird I picked up on the city's monitors." He told them. "Some kind of spike in activity, down below the surface. I'm not really sure what it is, but I don't think it's anything to worry about. I've been keeping an eye on it though, just in case."

"Oh yeah?" Danny asked, curious. For some reason, he didn't feel quite so optimistic as Tucker did about it. "What kind of spike?"

"Like I said, I'm not sure right now." Tucker admitted. "I don't think it's anything I've ever seen before, but I'm running it against the database just to be sure." He eyed Danny, catching his expression. "You have a thought?"

"It's probably nothing." Danny admitted. "I don't know, it's not a thought, really, more like a feeling." He told him. "Kind of like when you know you've forgotten something, but can't really think of what it is?"

"You think it might be ghost related?" Sam asked, lifting her head off Danny's shoulder. She had always found it odd that in a town with a history like Amity Park's there was only one ghost around.

"I don't know." Danny confessed. "I haven't sensed anything. It's been awhile since this city has had any real ghost activity though, my senses might just be dull." The raven haired boy admitted, adjusting the white aviation goggles he wore on his forehead as he spoke. "It's been," he frowned, trying to figure it out in his head. "Well, long before you two were born, at any rate."

"Mm, so says the old man." Tucker couldn't resist teasing Danny, grinning at him. "Exactly how old will you be come your next birthday?"

Danny twitched, shooting a glare at Tucker. "I am _not _that old." He frowned, looking away from him. "And I'd really rather not say."

"Tucker, don't tease him." Sam shot her friend a look. "You know he's sensitive about that sort of thing." She grinned over at Danny, putting her head back on his shoulder. Danny moved his arms, wrapping one around her.

"Mm, you just say that because you're dating him." Tucker pointed at her. "There are so many things wrong with that picture, you know. So many things. If you two weren't my friends, I would think you were really weird."

"If you weren't our friend, you wouldn't even know why it was weird." Sam pointed out. "Besides, I think you're just jealous because you still can't gather the courage to ask Valerie out yet. You wound up going to the senior prom alone, didn't you?"

"Hey, that was not my fault." Tucker protested. "I did too have the courage to ask Valerie to go, it was just that somebody else got there first." He crossed his arms in front of his chest. "Besides, I've been busy now. I'll ask her out when I'm good and ready! Just you wait."

"Oh, we will." Danny assured him. "But really, Tuck, you ought to do it. You're not going to know what she thinks of you until you ask her. It's not like she's going to bite your head off."

A beeping noise at Tucker's computer interrupted the conversation, and not a moment too soon for him. He knew his friends meant well, but he didn't like it when the subject of Valerie was brought up. It was kind of awkward to get love advice from that kind of couple. "That would be a match, then." Tucker said, turning around to bring up the results.

His eyes widened as he read them, and he turned back to Danny. "Hey, you know that ghost theory you guys had?" He asked them. "Yeah, well. I don't think you were that far off the mark."

The two brunettes exchanged looks, and got up from their chairs, heading over towards Tucker's computer to check out the results themselves. "Oh, holy crap." Danny's azure eyes went wide. "You have got to be kidding me."

Almost no sooner than had those words escaped his mouth, a wisp of blue smoke came from between his lips. Exchanging a look with his two friends, he frowned, turning towards the window. "I guess my senses haven't dulled after all." He observed.

It seemed that Tucker did know what kind of energy spike it was after all.

Ectoplasmic.

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AN: No, no, I don't intend to explain about Danny in this chapter. I might cover it in the next, but until then, if you guys have any theories, do feel free to share! I always like to hear them. 3


	2. Forever a Phantom

AN: I was going to update Two of a Kind today, but I got to wanting to write the next chapter for this, so I did that instead. I shall try to update TOAK sometime else this week, but until then, here is the next chapter of The Once and Future Phantom! I am having fun with this one, it's just so interesting redefining all of the canon relationships like this. Here is where everything starts, from which the plot will spring forth! I'm going to try and keep the ghost appearances in order according to the show, so we'll see how all that goes.

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The Once and Future Phantom

Chapter Two: Forever a Phantom

"Jack?" Maddie Fenton looked up from her work for a moment, over towards her husband. "Is everything working okay on your end?" She asked him. "Everything seems to be working fine for me."

"Everything's working well on this end!" Her husband, Jack Fenton told her, grinning as he looked at her from inside the portal. Today would at last be the day when they would finish the repairs on the old Fenton Ghost Portal. It had remained inactive ever since the fire that had claimed most of Amity Park, the plans for it lost.

After ten years of sitting abandoned, the portal had fallen apart. Even after the last surviving member of the Fenton family moved back into the repaired Fenton Works, she had left the portal untouched. And so it had sat, the great work of her parents, untouched and covered until Jack and Maddie had decided to put it back together again.

It was rough going at first, without the plans. They had to gut it and check out the systems themselves, which had taken about a year's worth of time. Rebuilding and repairing the thing had taken another year, and building a new power source had taken half of one. But at long last, their work was almost complete.

"I have to tell you, Maddie, I don't think I've ever been so excited about a new invention!" Jack told her, beaming. He paused then. "Well, it's not exactly new, and it's not exactly one of our inventions, but I think you get the point!"

"I do." Maddie smiled. "I can't wait to start it up. Think of all the things we could learn from it!" Her mind drifted to all of the possibilities. It wasn't just a portal to the Ghost Zone, it was a portal to answers. She knew that Jack's relatives, the ones who had first built this portal, rest their souls, had studied it thoroughly, but all records of that study had been lost, save for a very brief mention of it on a scrap of journal paper she had found one day.

"With this, we'll finally be able to capture our own ghost, Maddie!" Jack exclaimed, sounding more like an excited child than he did a grown man. "Seeing as Phantom seems to have some opposition to letting us rip him apart molecule by molecule." Jack frowned.

"You would think that after a hundred years, he might be ready to rest in peace." Maddie remarked, briefly turning to wonder over the strangeness that was Phantom. The two adult Fentons and the strange ghost had an awkward, though peaceful relationship. He was the only ghost in Amity Park, and proof to their claims that there were such things as ghosts. Phantom was the reason that her husband had gotten into ghost hunting and research in the first place.

There were a lot of unknown facts about the white haired ghost, but there were some things the two ghost hunters knew. He was roughly one hundred and eighteen years of age, having died at the age of eighteen during the fire. He seemed to remember who he was before his death, but would never talk to the Fentons about it. Maddie had a sneaking suspicion that her youngest daughter, Danielle, might know, but she couldn't manage to get it out of her.

He was as strong as he was old, although he always mentioned the appearance of an eighteen year old boy. He actually seemed to be a little sensitive about his age, which Maddie had to admit that she found funny. He didn't really like to talk about the fire all that much, no real surprise there, and he seemed to be pretty fond of humans. That wasn't too surprising, Maddie figured, seeing as how he must have been alone in the ruined town for the ten years it stood abandoned. He must have been overjoyed when people began to come back to it.

"Okay, Maddie!" Jack came out of the portal, giving it a pat. "I think we're good to go on my end. Everything set up on yours?"

"That it is." Maddie grinned, looking down at the control panel. She waited for her husband to join her, briefly exchanging and excited look with him, before she flipped the switch that would turn the portal on.

There was a rush of green light, and for awhile the couple couldn't see anything because of it. The light eventually faded, however, and revealed that the portal was fully functioning, revealing a swirling green mass of energy where an empty space in the wall had once been.

Jack and Maddie held their breaths for a few moments, as if they were almost anticipating it's failure. They had tried to make a scale model of it in college, once, but it had blown up in their faces. They could almost hear the other's heart beat as seconds turned into minutes, before they finally released a breath they didn't know that they had been holding.

"Well Jack," Maddie turned to him, taping the screen that monitored the portal's status. "It looks like this time we succeeded."

Jack couldn't contain his grin any longer, letting it spread wide over his face. "Then let all of Amity Park know that the Fenton Ghost Portal is back in commission!"

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Meanwhile, across town, a trio of friends did not know the portal was back in commission. All they knew was that they were staring at a pair of giant ghost octopuses.

Although there had been mild panic at first from the spike in ectoplasmic energy, once the three friends laid eyes on their first ghostly intruders, it was hard for them to keep a straight face. "Really?" Tucker found himself asking, having to laugh. "Ghost octopuses? How exactly is that supposed to be scary? They look like Disney World rejects."

The octopuses did not take kindly to this mockery, of course, but really, who would? With what could only be described as an incredibly misplaced roar, they rushed the three friends, seeming to be unwitting on what they were getting themselves into.

The ghost octopuses, that is.

Danny heaved a sigh as they rushed them, a flash of blue light briefly filling the room. In the place of Danny Fenton now stood the strange and mysterious white haired Phantom, once the token ghost of Amity Park.

Not anymore, it seemed. He knew that something had caused the ghosts of Amity to become free. He knew that he was probably going to be the one who ended up dealing with them, too. He also knew that he would probably have to pay a visit to Fenton Works later today, and figure out exactly what it was that they had done this time.

What he didn't know, of course, is why two of the ghosts showing up were octopuses. It made no sense, really, but he would roll with it for now.

"Seriously, I never thought I would have to fight anything this ridiculous." Phantom made a face, raising one hand in the air. He fired off a bolt of ectoplasmic energy, which smashed into the unsuspecting octopi. He grinned as the wailed in pain and fired off another one at them. "If you don't want to be destroyed, you two should really consider getting out of my sights."

It seemed as if they were not very brave octopuses. They were gone almost as quickly as they had come, turning tail and running, so to speak.

"Wow." Sam grinned, unable to keep a straight face as she spoke, taking Phantom's arm. "My hero."

"Oh, I'm just doing my job." He told her, then glanced over at Tucker. "Tuck, how is the ectoplasmic energy reading now?" He asked.

Tucker took a seat at his computer, looking over the monitoring charts. "It's still higher than it ever has been, but it looks like it's starting to level out now." He told them, turning back around. "I don't think it's anything that we have to worry about too much, from the looks of it. I'm not picking up any other reports of ghostly activity just yet."

"Mm, well, that's good." Phantom nodded. He knew this day would come at one point, and he was just glad that it didn't seem to be as bad as he thought it would be.

"What do you think caused it?" Sam asked, glancing up at the ghost. Phantom. He hadn't really changed all that much from when she had first met him, all those years ago. His clothing had changed, but his white hair and green eyes were just like they had been when he had first saved her life all of those years ago. She had never forgotten it.

Of course, back then, she didn't think she would one day be dating him.

The two of them loved each other, for sure. They knew it wasn't meant to last, and that it couldn't last. After all, Sam was human, and Phantom was... well, he was something different. He had been human, once, and in a way, still was.

But that didn't mean they wouldn't enjoy it while it did last.

"I don't know." Phantom frowned. "I do know that I'll be paying the Fenton's a visit tonight."

"I thought we had a date tonight." Sam said, looking up at him. She pulled her arm away from his, and crossed them in front of her chest. "You didn't forget, did you Danny?" She asked, tilting her head to the side.

"Ah." Phantom paused, looking back over at his upset girlfriend. "Maybe just a little?" He confessed. "I'll make it up to you tomorrow, though, Sam. We'll skip out on class and go to the movies together or something."

Sam smiled, dropping the angry act. "Oh, don't worry about it Danny." She told him, putting her hand on his shoulder. She could never really stay mad at him for long, though this time she was only pretending. "I know that this is probably more important. The movies sound like a fine idea."

"Geez, what was the point of me getting you enrolled as a transfer student, Danny, if you're just going to keep blowing off school?" Tucker asked, arching an eyebrow. "You were the one who pushed me to do it, too, remember? Telling me that you wanted to spend more time with Sam." He heaved a sigh. "All that effort hacking into the school systems and implanting false data for what? You two to run off and hook up during school hours?"

"Oh come on, Tucker." Phantom looked back at him, grinning. "We do go to school a lot more than we skip it." He laughed a little then, sounding somewhat sheepish. "Although I have to admit, I don't understand half of what the teachers are saying. I guess that's what happens when you've been out of school for a hundred years."

One hundred years.

Tucker almost didn't believe him when he had told him that he had been dead for that long. But as he grew to know Phantom, or Danny, as he liked to be called by them, he learned that he was telling the truth.

Danny Fenton had died one hundred years ago in the Great Amity Park Fire at the age of eighteen. There were no longer any records of his existence back then, however, the three of them had destroyed all traces of him so they could pull off the transfer student ruse. Of course, it would have all been worthless if not for the fact that Phantom was a very unusual ghost.

He had a human form.

To be sure, he was still dead in said human form. Danny assured them that at one point, he was very much alive in his human body, but that it had died in the fire. Although he didn't really understand quite why, he had not become a simple ghost afterwards, and instead, his human form remained. He was afraid that it would start to rot and decay at one point, but again, it never did.

Nor did it age. Although he was older than Tucker's grandparents now, Phantom didn't look a day older than he was when he had died. People noticed this about Phantom, but they didn't think it strange. They didn't notice it about the human side of things, Danny, but they didn't even know who he was before he had 'transferred' into Casper High School.

Oh sure, it hadn't been the first time that Danny was out and about in his more human form. No, he used it to blend in with humans from time to time over the past one hundred years. It was, however, the first time any of them saw his face, or even knew his name. Amity Park was a huge city these days, filled with all sorts of people from all over the place. People could go by unnoticed for years if they didn't make a point of standing out.

"You should have seen it the other day, Tucker." Sam grinned. "Mr. Lancer was asking everyone the most recent book they had read. This idiot tells him that it's a book that hasn't been published since 2050." She said, ruffling the ghost's hair. "You should have seen the look on his face."

"I keep telling you, Danny." Tucker said, getting up from his chair. "You really ought to pay more attention to the changes going on around you. I mean, what exactly did you do in your spare time before you met us anyways?" He asked, arching an eyebrow.

"Hey, not everybody is as into technology as you are, Tucker." Phantom lifted his hands. "Anyways, I have to go check out the town you two." He told them, glancing over at both of them. "I have to make sure there isn't anything else going on around here that I should know about."

"Yeah, alright, Danny." Sam smiled, leaning up to give him a quick peck on the cheek. "Go on and play hero." She waved a finger at him, smiling a little. "Don't try to save too many damsels in distress. You don't need anymore Paulina's over you, do you?" She asked.

At that, Phantom made a face. "Ugh, why did you have to remind me about that? If I had known she was going to cling to me like that every time she saw me, I would have left here alone." He said, despite the fact that it was obvious he could never leave a person in need be. It just wasn't in his nature.

"If you get into a tight spot, give us a call." Tucker lifted his hand, patting him on the shoulder. "You know how to work that cell phone of yours, right?" He asked, giving him a skeptical look. "I would hate to think we got it for you for nothing."

"I'm not that hopeless, Tuck." Phantom snapped, glaring at him. "I know how to work a basic cell phone."

"Yeah, alright." Tucker lifted his hands, shrugging his shoulders. "We'll see you around Danny. Be careful out there, from the looks of the charts, this place might have just become ghost central. It's just that nobody else has noticed it yet."

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"Augh, mom!" An annoyed voice was heard from upstairs, as nineteen year old Jasmine Fenton made her way downstairs to her parents laboratory. She had her hands clasped over her ears, wincing against the sound of the noise their alert system was making. "What's going on? Why is the alarm going off?"

"Just one second, sweetie!" Maddie shouted over the sound of the alarm, before she moved to override it. A few seconds later, the noise died down. "There was just a huge spike in ectoplasmic energy a few moments earlier." She told her, glancing up at her oldest daughter.

"Like ghosts?" Jazz asked, rubbing her ears. Agh, she swore she could still hear that damned alarm. She paused then, glancing over at the activated portal, before quickly turning towards her parents. "No, you guys, didn't, did you?" She asked, looking at them, then back at the portal. "I thought Phantom told you starting that thing up was a bad idea!"

The two adult Fentons exchanged looks. He had told them that- in fact, he had seemed to be very much against it when Jack had let it slip that they were going to fix it three years ago. He hadn't given any reasons why they shouldn't, however, and after analyzing the portal, they had decided that there would be no risk in doing so.

"Well, your father and I didn't see the harm." Maddie admitted. "Although this spike in ectoplasmic energy does worry me a bit." She frowned, looking at the monitoring chart. "It may just be the portal though, sweetie, and nothing to worry about."

"Nothing to worry about my ass."

The three Fentons gave a start, looking upwards to the source of the voice. A very annoyed Phantom was floating there, his arms crossed in front of his chest. He cast a glance over towards the portal, and heaved a sigh. "I knew it. I knew that was the reason behind all of this. You really started it back up didn't you?" He asked.

"Well, only because you wouldn't let us study you!" Jack insisted, not seeming to think that they had done anything wrong. Really, to their knowledge, they hadn't.

"As if anyone would let you do that." Phantom shrugged his shoulders, landing in front of the three Fentons. He paused for a moment, spotting Jazz and waved a hand over to her. Unlike his relationship with the two older Fentons, Phantom's relationship with their daughters was much closer to that of friendship. He was closer to their youngest than he was to Jazz, though, but the two still got along.

"It's not like you ever specified to us why restarting the portal was a bad idea, Phantom." Maddie said, watching him closely. Although they had gotten to know him over several years, she was always still suspicious of the ghost. He always seemed to be keeping something from them, and Maddie couldn't help but find that she didn't trust him. "We checked everything out, and found that there would be no problems with us getting it to work."

"Well, how about the fact that you guys just woke up the sleeping ghosts of Amity, for one?" Phantom asked, looking over at them. He didn't really like being here either, there were too many memories for them in this place, even though the interior of building had changed since he had lived here all those years ago.

Maddie and Jack exchanged a look then, and Maddie frowned, going over to check the readings again. "How can you tell?" She asked, looking up over at him. "We haven't gotten any reports of ghostly activity yet."

"Because I saw them with my own eyes." Phantom said, eyes narrowing. "I can feel them even now. They're out there, and they are just waiting for a chance to come out." He told them. "They've been sealed away but aware for one hundred years now- not all of them are going to be as nice as me, I can tell you that already."

"Well, maybe if you had come out with that in the first place, we could have avoided that." Maddie told him, eyeing him. "You weren't very specific when you told us not to touch the portal, Phantom."

_That was because I had other reasons for telling you guys not to touch the portal. _Phantom thought to himself. He didn't want any of them to be caught up in the same kind of accident that he had back when he was fourteen. He knew that if he hadn't, things would have been different than they were now.

So much different.

"Most people would listen when someone tells them not to do something." Phantom crossed his arms in front of his chest.

"Well, not really." Jazz chimed in. "Actually, Phantom, there is a good number of people who will do just the opposite."

Phantom blinked, seeming surprised by this. "Really?" He asked, arching an eyebrow. "Well, what's the point of that? I mean, what if I told them not to stick their head into a lion's mouth or something?"

"I don't think that's quite the same thing." Jazz pointed out. "Anyways, Phantom, don't blame them too much." She said, wanting to stop a conflict between the ghost and her parents. Her parents were ghost hunters, after all, even if Phantom was the only ghost they had ever met. They were natural enemies, and she kind of got the feeling that they might turn on each other the very first moment things went wrong.

"What's done is done." Jazz told him. "Anyways, now that the Ghost Portal is open, couldn't we just find a way to send all of the ghosts here back in there?" She asked, pointing towards the swirling green vortex.

"That's a good idea, Jazzarincess!" Jack chimed in, seeming the head to one of their workbenches. "Your mother and I just finished something that works to catch ghosts last week!" He said, producing what appeared to be a thermos.

"Dad, that's for carrying soup in." Jazz arched an eyebrow.

"Well, it was, Jazzy-pants, but then your mother and I gave it a much grander purpose!" Jack boasted, holding it up. "No, now it can catch ghosts! Trap 'em inside of it until they can be sent back to the Ghost Zone." He paused then. "Or to be held until we can tear them apart, molecule by molecule."

"Dad, could you please refrain form saying things like that around Phantom?" Jazz asked, glancing over at the ghost. Sure enough, he had that look on his face that he always got when he was imagining something unpleasant. She noticed that whenever the two ghost hunters talked about ripping apart ghosts or studying them with him around, it did more than just bring up disturbing mental images.

It seemed to bring up some bad memories.

Jazz had always meant to ask about it, but Phantom had always brushed it off. She had mentioned it to Sam once, but the Goth girl didn't seem inclined to provide her with any information. She said that was for Phantom to say, and not for her to tell.

All Jazz knew was that Sam's new boyfriend was somehow also Phantom. She didn't understand it, but she sure wanted to. Although the two got along well with each other, and might even be called friends, Jazz didn't really know all that much about Phantom. Even Danni was sometimes just as clueless as she was.

Whatever his secrets were, Phantom was keeping them well away from the Fenton family.

"Fine, fine." Phantom lifted up a hand, his eyes closed. "I see your point, Jazz. What's done is done." He opened his eyes, putting his hand down. "Can you loan that thing to me?" He asked, nodding towards the thermos.

"Oh sure." Jack tossed it over to him. "We made others as well! Always got to have backups of your equipment. That's what my great grandmother used to say."

"So I've heard." Phantom took the thermos, looking it over. This would come in handy, provided it actually worked. If it did, then he would have to admit that the pair did have their moments.

"Are you sure you can even work it?" Maddie asked, arching an eyebrow. Phantom wasn't exactly known for being good with technology. He was one of the few technophobes who lived in Amity Park. At least in his defense, he had no choice to live here, though. He couldn't leave Amity Park- he'd tried once, but found himself back in the city again.

"It's just a thermos, how hard can it be?" Phantom frowned, looking over at her. He couldn't help but feel his age when people who looked older than him poked fun at his inability to use the latest gadgets. "I am not _that _hopeless."

"If you insist." Maddie said. "We'll be keeping our eyes out for any ghost activities as well, Phantom, so I would advise you to keep that in mind if something starts acting up." She told him. She didn't trust leaving a ghost to fight other ghosts.

"I imagine you will." Phantom said, levitating off the ground. "I'm going to get a head start on that, then." He glanced over towards Jazz, and gave her another wave before he turned intangible and phased through the ceiling and out of the building. He guessed that Danni wasn't home at the moment, since he hadn't seen her. He was kind of feeling annoyed that she had kept the fact that her parents were rebuilding the Fenton Ghost Portal from him, though. He knew she loved her parent's job, and was always up in their business.

He didn't have long to think about this, however, as his ghost sense distracted him once more. Groaning, he turned towards the direction it was coming from, getting the feeling it was going to be a long night.

A small feeling of nostalgia rose in him as he flew off to check out the disturbance. Going to school, keeping secrets, fighting ghosts. It was almost like old times, really.

But things could never be the same again.

After all, one hundred years ago, Daniel Fenton had died. All that was really left now was Phantom.

____________________________________________

Also, for those of you who are curious, here are the WIP designs for Phantom, Danny, Sam, Tucker, and Dani. Take out the spaces!

bekuki. deviantart. com / art / WIP-Danny-Phantom-Future-Cast-111020836


	3. Raven Hair

AN: Well, this chapter went in a bit of a different direction than I planned, ending up focusing more on Sam and Danny, and introducing Mr. Lancer and Dani! Obviously, the title refers to the three black haired characters featured in this chapter, Danny, Sam, and Dani (DP has a lot of characters with black hair, I think.) I like writing for Dani, her personality is pretty fun. But, our first main ghost should appear next chapter! There's a pretty blatant hint as to who it will be in this chapter, as if anyone had any doubts who the first one would be.

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The Once and Future Phantom

Chapter Three: Raven Hair

"I can respect the fact that you two are currently in a relationship." Mr. Lancer began, pacing the room in front of the pair that had been caught skipping school. "And I can understand that you two would like to spend time with each other. However," He came to a stop, looking at the couple. "That doesn't mean that you should do it on school time."

Danny Fenton and Samantha Manson exchanged a look with each other, seeming to be a bit sheepish about being caught. But how were _they _supposed to know that Principal Ishiyama had truant officers staking out the movie theater today? Mr. Lancer, their homeroom teacher, did not look very pleased, to say the least.

"Not only did you two skip school today, you also went missing during the field trip yesterday afternoon." He told them, sounding rather cross. "Miss Manson, I know you have a history of skipping class, so I'm quite aware that you wouldn't listen to me even if I told you not to, but I would suggest that you stop dragging your boyfriend into your bad habits."

"Oh come _on_, Mr. Lancer." Sam spoke up. "It's not like we had any tests or important projects to do today." She told him. "We're not _that _stupid. What's wrong with missing out on school every once and awhile?"

"Because it's against the _rules_, Miss Manson." Mr. Lancer arched an eyebrow. "Whether or not you had anything due today doesn't matter- your education should be your top priority now." He glanced over towards her boyfriend, Daniel. "And you, Mister Fenton, would be better off not even contemplating skipping class. I don't really know what they were teaching you in your old school, but you're so far behind in your lessons you might as well be a freshman. You've already been held back once as it is."

Danny felt his face flush a bit at that. It wasn't his fault that stuff had changed during the one hundred years he hadn't been going to school. He was flunking his science course and not doing so hot on his math courses. The only classes he was actually passing at the moment were his literature and history classes, the former of which Mr. Lancer also taught, in addition to being the Vice Principal.

"Miss Manson, I've already called your parents and informed them that you will be staying after school today." The balding teacher glanced over towards the older student. "And you, Mister Fenton, I would appreciate it if you actually stayed put during detention this time. I don't know how you keep managing to sneak out, but it's getting rather old."

Sam groaned, knowing that she would be hearing it from her parents tonight. They had been more lenient on her last night, when they learned she had skipped the field trip- after all, they were her parent's labs. She knew, however, that once they found out she had skipped school to go on a date with Danny, they would be furious.

Her parents didn't really like him all that much, they had made no secret about that fact. They seemed to view him as a bad influence on their daughter's life, which was already being shoved in the wrong direction by her friendship with Phantom. They didn't want any more 'delinquent boys' in Sam's life, be they living or otherwise.

"I'll try my best, Mr. Lancer." Danny spoke up, grinning a little bit at him. The balding teacher groaned internally, knowing that they would be gone the first time he turned his back on them. Someday he would learn exactly how Danny seemed to be able to slip out without anyone noticing. If he didn't know any better, he could swear the boy was a ghost.

"Yes, well," Mr. Lancer arched an eyebrow, clearly skeptical. "I'm going to be keeping a close eye on you two." He cleared his throat. "In any case, I'm sure you know the routine by now. Take seats on opposite sides of the room."

The raven haired couple exchanged looks, before they separated, taking seats on the opposite ends of the classroom. They seemed to be the only ones who had ended up in detention today, amazingly enough. Oh, there had been a few other skippers, he was sure, but they hadn't been caught, and would be dealt with come tomorrow.

Mr. Lancer took a seat at his desk, watching the two carefully. If he had to pick out his oddest students, these two would probably be it. Although Samantha Manson was the only child of the Manson family, who owned Manson Inc, she seemed to have a strong dislike of modern day technology. She was rather- what was the word, 'old school'? Yes, he thought that was it. Her likes and interests dated back to things from when Mr. Lancer was a child, and even beyond then.

While it pleased him that she was far more interested in the old classics than the rest of his class was, he could do without her constant rebelling against authority. Though she was a Goth, and seemed to detest pink, he was pretty much certain that should wear the color if it were banned. Still, she wasn't exactly what he would call a problem student, not as he knew some of his colleagues viewed her as, since her grades were still very good. She was a very smart girl and had a very creative mind, two aspects Mr. Lancer thought would serve her well in her future.

As for her boyfriend, Daniel Fenton.

He was a bit of a different story. He had transferred to Casper High after moving from one of the worst cities in the state, notorious for it's high crime rates. Mr. Lancer had always been curious about why he had suddenly moved to Amity Park, alone, without any of his family, but he thought it might be best not to ask. There were perhaps some things better left unsaid, he thought, knowing that he always got a strange look on his face when someone inquired about his past.

If his girlfriend was just odd, then Daniel Fenton was just plain _weird_. In addition to having the worst grades out of his homeroom students, he was also completely incapable of dealing with any technology from later than 2010, it seemed. Her couldn't seem to manage to even work his cell phone, which was an older model, for at least a week. Whereas Miss Manson simply disliked technology, he almost seemed to be suffering from technophobia.

Sometimes it felt like he was considerably older than he looked- indeed, sometimes he came off as feeling even older than Mr. Lancer was. He seemed to know the past one hundred years of history vividly, as if he had lived through it rather than just having read about it in a textbook. He was always heavily dressed, even during the middle of summer- the only part of his body that was ever uncovered was his face. He was blind in his left eye, from an unexplained scar that ran through it, and seemed to avoid the nurse's office like the plague.

All in all, he almost found it fitting that they should be in a relationship together. Danny and Sam had begun to go out just about four months after he had transferred, although they were friends before that. They seemed to be very close, as if they had known each other for years, rather than just a few months. He'd heard them say that they had been pen pals at one point, which would certainty explain that.

He had to wonder if the reason he had moved to Amity Park was just to be with Miss Manson.

There was a knock on the door then, and Mr. Lancer glanced. "Stay put." He eyed the pair, before he went to open the door. "Oh, Miss Fenton. What can I help you with?" He asked.

Standing at the door was Danielle Fenton, the youngest child of the Fenton family. Although they had the same last name as Danny, they did not seem to be related to each other. For all that, there were a surprising number of similarities between Daniel and Danielle, which were not limited to their names. Both had black hair and blue eyes, and often displayed similar personality traits.

"Hey, Mr. Lancer!" The fourteen year old girl grinned, holding up a small stack of papers. "I wrote that extra credit report you wanted." She told him, passing them over to the balding teacher. He took them from her, flipping through them. Ah, yes, he remembered giving her this- it was to make up for how poorly she had been doing in his freshman literature class.

Danielle wasn't a bad student, per say, she just didn't really pay enough attention. She always had her head in the clouds. She was always so busy helping her parents after school, that she didn't always seem to get her homework done- and when she did, she would often forget it.

"Yes, thank you, Miss Fenton." He said, tucking them under his arm. "I'll review this tonight and get back to you on your updated grade. You do remember what I told you about paying more attention in class, right?"

"Huh?" Dani blinked. "I'm sorry, did you say something?" It seemed that she had been peering behind him, waving to Sam and Danny. She seemed to be good friends of them both. "Oh, yeah, paying attention in class. I gotcha, Mr. Lancer, don't worry about it." She grinned.

"Yes, well." Mr. Lancer cleared his throat, adjusting his position in a way so that she couldn't see the other two. "Thank you for dropping this by, Miss Fenton. You can go now." The raven haired girl seemed to take his hint, and took her leave. Turning back around, Mr. Lancer let out a groan as he noticed that she wasn't the only one.

Danny and Sam were gone.

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"I don't think I could have planned that better myself." Sam grinned, glancing up at her white haired boyfriend. "Dani has a wonderful sense of timing."

They had made their escape while Mr. Lancer was talking to Dani. It wouldn't be too suspicious if they left the room, seeing as they were on the first floor, and the detention room did have a window with a broken lock. They didn't even have to use Danny's ghost powers to get out.

"Maybe I'll forgive her for not telling me about the Ghost Portal." Phantom grinned, looking down at Sam. She was currently in his arms, being carried princess style as he flew through the air. Sam enjoyed flying with him, and didn't really seem to care who saw them together. After all, it was well known that Phantom and Sam had been good friends well before Danny Fenton had moved to town. Who was to know?

"Mm, you should." Sam advised him. "You know Dani, she's fascinated by the work her parents do. She probably wanted to see it activated just as much as they did."

"Yeah, you're probably right." Phantom grinned down at her, heading towards the ground now. They landed near the park, and Phantom set her down. "So, what's this I hear about you changing the lunch menu anyways?" He asked, changing the topic. He didn't want to dwell on the fact that a ghost could pop up at any moment and ruin their time together.

"Ah, that!" Sam grinned, taking Phantom's hand. There were some odd looks from the people who were around, but most of them seemed to recognize the pair. After all, when Sam Manson wasn't hanging out with Tucker Foley or Danny Fenton, she was hanging out with Phantom. And Phantom had never really tried to hide himself from the humans- it kind of seemed like he needed the attention.

Considering that he had spent ten years alone in a ruined city, who could blame him?

"Yeah, I talked to the lunch ladies at school." She told him. "Starting next week, we are switching to a vegetarian menu for the week." She grinned, seeming to be proud of herself. "I encouraged them to try to deviate from that old menu of theirs. I mean, the thing has been in use since before you were even born!"

Phantom laughed a little at that, knowing it was true. That was one thing that hadn't really changed. "Oh man, I imagine some people are going to pissed, though." He said. "It's a good thing Tucker graduated last year, otherwise he wouldn't be speaking to you for the entire week."

"Oh, he's already pretty annoyed with me." Sam admitted. "But you know Tucker. We've been friends for so long, he really just can't stay that mad at me. Besides, if anyone is that irritated with it, they can just bring their own lunch. It's not like I'm forcing them to eat the food or anything."

"Yeah, but some of them aren't very given over to logic." Phantom observed. "Like Dash."

"He is a dick, isn't he?"

Sam and Phantom turned around, glancing at the owner of the voice behind them. "Dani!" Phantom grinned, letting got of Sam's hand to ruffle her hair. "Thanks for the save back there."

"Ah, that?" Dani waved her hand, after ducking away from Phantom's head rub. "No problem. Didn't actually know you two were in there." She grinned. "But hey, if I can make things work out better for my favorite friends, whose to complain?" She asked.

"Well, I'm sure Mr. Lancer will have a few complaints." Sam commented. "But we owe you one. Are you hungry? We were just going to head over to the Nasty Burger."

"Both of you?" Dani asked, glancing over at Phantom. "I will never understand why you like to eat, Phantom." She shrugged her shoulders. "You do know you're kind of dead, and don't _exactly _need to be worrying about that anymore?" She asked.

"What can I say?" Phantom shrugged. "My taste buds are still alive and kicking." He took Sam's hand again. "Besides, I'll be switching over before I get there, so I won't stand out half as much as you seem to think I will."

Out of the few people that knew that Phantom was Danny Fenton, Dani was the last one of them. She had always been good friends with him, despite the fact that her parents were ghost hunters. When asked why, Danny used to say that she reminded him a bit of his younger sister. After that, people stopped asking. Although he had one hundred years to get over the whole being dead thing, his family still seemed to be a sensitive issue for him.

Sam and Tucker theorized that he might be related to the Fentons, but also allowed for the possibility that it was a coincidence. The only existing record of Amity Park residents from before the fire was on the Memorial. Everything else, from the four years leading up to the fire, seemed to have been lost after the city had started back up.

Anyways, they figured that if a hundred years wasn't enough time to get over whatever was bothering him, then maybe they should just leave it alone.

"Mm, then I'll guess I'll take you up on that offer." Dani grinned. "Besides, I'm _starving_."

__________________________________________

"One of these days, I swear, I'm going to figure out what the hell the Nasty Burger mascot is supposed to be." Danny commented, glancing up from his cheeseburger to look at the stand outside. "Some kind of weird beetle?" He asked, arching an eyebrow. "I don't think bugs are very appetizing myself."

"Well, to be fair, it _is _the _Nasty_ Burger." Dani pointed out, munching on a french fry. "But I can see what you mean. When I first came here, I thought I was going to hate the food. I mean, really, a _nasty _burger? How good can _that _taste?"

"I think the people who founded this place were big into irony." Sam commented, taking a sip of her soda. The trio was sequestered away in a corner booth at the restaurant, out of the way of everyone else so they could talk with no worries.

"Mm, that would explain a few things." Dani said, finishing off her fries. "Thanks for treating me, by the way." She said, looking up at Sam.

"It's not exactly like I lack the money." Sam told them, grinning a little. She _was _rich, after all, though she hated to flaunt it. She'd much rather spend her money buying her close friends some lunch, than waving it around and trying to gain popularity with it. It wasn't exactly a secret that she was rich, given her parent's well known names in the city, but people kind of forgot it because of how she chose to act.

"Which is convenient, because otherwise, we could never go out on proper dates." Danny joked, grinning. "I'm not sure how positions there are available for a zombie."

"You mean, besides brain eating and being an extra in horror flicks?" Sam asked, looking over at her boyfriend. "I think you're just lazy, Danny." She told him, but couldn't really keep a straight face. "You keep on mooching off of Tucker and me all the time."

"Yeah, but could you see him working?" Dani asked, grinning at her. "There's technology everywhere these days. He wouldn't survive for one day at a job, I can guarantee you that."

"Oh come on you two, I'm not that helpless, am I?" Danny asked, giving them a look, almost seeming to be offended. "Surely I can manage at least a day. It's _two _days that I would have trouble with."

The two raven haired girls exchanged grins, although it was broken by the sound of Sam's phone ringing. She groaned, knowing by the ring tone that it was her parent's calling. "Ugh, they're probably pissed at me by now." She frowned, pulling it out of her bag and turning it off. "Well, let's not deal with that now."

"Mm, what do you think they're more mad at you for?" Danny asked, finishing off his cheeseburger. "Skipping school, or skipping school to hang out with me?"

"Oh, skipping school to hang out with you, definitely." Sam nodded firmly. "They just don't like you, Danny." She said, glancing over at him. "No matter what form you're in. Do you know they blame Phantom for my whole 'Goth thing'?" She asked him, putting air quotes around the last two words.

"Ah, they might actually be right about that one." Danny pointed out. "Do you think you would really be half as interested in the stuff you are now if it wasn't for me?" He asked. "It's just the whole bad influence idea that they've got wrong."

"Ah, that could be." Sam admitted. "Who knows? If I hadn't met you, I might be romping around the halls of Casper High like _Paulina_." She shuddered at the thought. "Oh god, I've never been more grateful for your friendship than I am right now, Danny."

"Ew, I just got a mental image of that." Dani made a face, looking as if she was about to throw up. "Pink really isn't your color, you know." She pointed out. "And polka dots don't look good on you."

"Exactly what were you imagining?" Sam asked, looking blankly at her. She held up her hands then, changing her mind. "No, wait, don't tell me. I think it might be best if I never know."

"That it is." Dani agreed with her.

"Yeah, well, I'd still be very bored if I hadn't met you, Sam." Danny admitted. "Having powers like that is cool and all, but the enjoyment kind of starts to fade after awhile." He told them, eying Dani as he said this. He knew that the smaller raven haired girl had always dreamed of having ghost powers of her own, something which he had always told her wasn't as fun as she seemed to think it was.

"I don't see how." The younger girl huffed, just as Danny predicted she would. "Personally, I think it would be awesome!" She grinned. "I mean, with powers like yours, I could do whatever I want!"

"Yeah, but what would your parents think?" Danny asked, arching an eyebrow. "Your folks are on good terms with me and all, but I know they're just kind of waiting for me to show my 'true nature'." He said, making air quotes around the last two words. "It's not all it's cracked up to be, trust me."

"Well, I still think it would be awesome." Dani pouted, refusing to see it his way.

"Now, now." Sam intervened, playing peacemaker. "Come on, let's not argue about it. There's no way you could get them anyways, Dani. Danny was a one time thing." She told her, arching an eyebrow. "Besides, Danny's your elder, you really ought to listen to him sometimes."

"Elder?" Dani asked, grinning. "He's like my _great-grandpa_ or something, Sam."

"Hey!" Danny protested. "Come on, you _know _I don't like it when you guys poke fun at my age like that." He huffed. "I'm sensitive about it."

"Oh come on Danny, you know she didn't mean it." Sam took his hand. "Besides, you don't look a day over eighteen and you're never going to look any older. Don't worry about it so much."

"I think it's cool." Dani told him, taking a sip of her soda. "You're like immortal or something, Danny. There's no way that can't be neat."

"You can't be immortal if you're already dead." Danny pointed out. "Besides, it's not really all that it's cracked up to be anyways." He was still smiling, but there was something sad about his face. Sam and Dani exchanged a look, knowing that was their cue to change the subject.

Luckily, they were saved by the ringing of Dani's phone. "Oh hang on, it's mom." She said, pulling out her phone. "Hey mom. Oh, yeah, I turned it into him, don't worry. Where am I?" She asked, repeating her mother. "I'm at the Nasty Burger with Sam and Danny. Yeah, Sam's treating me. Oh, really?" She asked. "Okay, I'm done with my food anyways. I'll be home in a few minutes."

"Mmkay, bye mom. Love you too." Dani hung up her phone then, glancing over at Sam and Danny. "I have to run. Mom says they've got something they want to show me."

"Another Ghost Portal?" Danny asked, glancing over at her. As much as he had planned to forgive her, he was still a bit annoyed that she hadn't told him.

Dani winced, knowing that he was kind of angry with her for that. "I don't really know. It's probably nothing, but I promise I'll tell you about it this time." She said. "I just kind of wanted to see what the Portal could do myself." She confessed. "I didn't think it would unleash a bunch of ghosts."

"You didn't think a _ghost _portal would unleash _ghosts_?" Sam asked, arching an eyebrow. The younger girl flushed in response, not having an answer to that. "No, don't mind me, Dani. You hurry on home."

"Okay." She said, lifting up her hand. "I'll see you two in school tomorrow!" She hurried out the door then.

"Mm, shouldn't you be heading home too?" Danny asked, looking over at Sam. "The longer you stay out, the more your parents are going to be pissed at you." He pointed out.

Sam reached over to him, and gave him a light smack on the head. "As if that has ever stopped me before."


	4. Apparently, School Lunch is Sacred

OOC: Oh wow. It's been over a year now since I've updated anything, so for those of you who are watching me... I am SO SORRY. I have a million IRL reasons as to why I couldn't get around to it, but I won't go into them. Suffice to say, stuff happened and it wasn't all that pleasant. I am going to try and get back on top of things. The next story I update should (finally) be the second chapter of Thawing the Ice, followed by either Graveyard Shift: Redux or Two of a Kind.

I also am planning to do a full rewrite of Dangerous Obsessions, because looking back and comparing it with my current writing style, I think it's not really that well written or well thought out. So, hopefully look forward to that in the future! This also means that Wanted will be on hiatus until further notice. Meanwhile, Moonlit Bane is being discontinued because I've never, ever been happy with it.

But anyways, I'm back, for all that's worth! Hopefully I still have some people reading my writing. 3

* * *

The Once and Future Phantom

Chapter Four: Apparently, School Lunch is Sacred

Samantha Manson let out a loud yawn as she walked from her home in Amity Park towards Casper High School. Her parents had kept her up into the late hours of the night, lecturing her about responsibility, education, and of course, choosing her friends and boyfriends better. Though her parents tolerated Tucker well enough, as odd as the techno geek could be sometimes, they deeply frowned on her relationship with Danny and her friendship with Phantom.

They'd probably care for both those last two relationships a lot less if they had any idea they were the same person.

She's finally gotten them to leave her be by pointing out the time, but they hadn't forgotten to punish her before they left her to go to bed for a night. She was grounded for a week, having to go straight to school and back again as soon as it was over. It wasn't the worst punishment she'd ever received, but nevertheless, she knew that by the time the week was up, she would be chaffing at her bonds. If she chose to pay attention to them, that is. After all, knowing someone who can walk through walls kind of put a damper on punishments like that.

So she was thinking, smiling a little to herself, as she headed into the halls of Casper High School. Tired as she was, she didn't notice for a second the crowd of people that had gathered outside the doors to the cafeteria, all of them mumbling to each other. When she did notice it, it took her a few moments to realize why that was, and even longer for her to remember that she was the cause of it. Suddenly alert now, she realized that today was the day that her vegetarian menu was being put in place for a week long trail.

Smiling to herself, as she was proud of the work she did in order to make this happen, she quietly moved towards the crowd, trying to hear what they were saying. It hadn't been easy, convincing the school board and the cafeteria staff to create this alternate menu, as it seemed that the school cafeteria was something that was steeped in tradition for reasons Sam never fully understood. She wasn't really joking when she told Danny that the lunch menu at Casper High was older than he was- it _really _was.

Of course, the fact that most of the teachers at Casper regarded her as something of a problem child didn't really help matters, but she'd managed to finally convince them to at least try it out. If not enough people bought from the menu, they would scrap it, but she had confidence that there would be enough people who would chose her vegetarian based options over the traditional, more meat-based options that it would stick.

"Are they joking with this?" She heard someone complain, frowning a little as she looked towards the source of the voice. She made a small face as she recognized her, knowing her to be Paulina's constant companion, or 'satellite', as it were. Fittingly, her name was Star. Sam had briefly wondered if her parents were hippies when she heard her name for the first time, but quickly decided that wasn't even remotely the case. Putting aside her dislike for the shallow girl, she listened in to what she was saying. "We have to eat nothing put vegetables for a _week?"_

Now that Sam did seem shocked by. Nothing but? No, that wasn't how it worked, they still had the normal menu, the vegetarian menu was just supposed to be an alternate menu of a sorts for everyone! She knew that people would resent being forced to eat a vegetarian diet, it was why she had changed her mind before making the final proposal and suggested it as an alternate menu... but only vegetables? That couldn't be right, was Star reading the menu wrong?

Puzzled, her eyebrows knitting together in confusion, Sam glanced at the menu herself. No, Star wasn't misreading it, there was really only her vegetarian menu set up for the whole week! Was it some kind of error? Looking around for a teacher, she churned over how they could have gotten it wrong in her mind. They couldn't have heard her wrong, she was _sure _she had explained it properly, and she was certain her proposal was the correct version- she had checked four times to make sure that she hadn't been mistaken!

"Manson!"

Sam snapped out of her thoughts, hearing her name being angrily called. Wincing internally, she glanced over back towards Star, finding the blonde girl glaring at her now. She was wearing a white tank top, a large red star located right over her chest, and a matching red mini skirt that Sam was almost certain violated dress code regulations by _at least _an inch.

"You're behind this," Star said accusingly, jabbing her finger towards the displayed menu, glaring at her angrily as she spoke. "...aren't you? You better 'fess up, cause this has your stench all over it!"

_...Stench?_ Sam briefly wondered, resisting the momentary urge to sniff herself to see if she was indeed giving of a stench. "No, I did suggest that they run a vegetarian menu," she acknowledged, shaking her head a little, "...but it was supposed to be side by side to the normal menu. I just wanted to give the school's vegetarians an option, that was all. We get kind of _tired _of being forced to bring our own lunches in all the time because there's nothing for us to eat." She explained.

Star was clearly not having this explanation, although Sam noticed a few people in the background nodding along with Sam. She wasn't certain if they were agreeing that it was a mistake, or if they were agreeing that the menu wasn't exactly meeting everyone's needs. "Oh don't give me that, Manson." Star waved her hand. "You little hippie Goth chicks are _always _trying to ruin everything for everybody. They even got rid of the normal desert selections for rice pudding. Who the hell would ever want to eat _rice pudding?"_

_Rice pudding? Doesn't that have milk in it? _Sam thought to herself, realizing that wasn't really important at the moment though. "Look, I'm sorry for the mix-up, but I can assure you that this wasn't my intention." She didn't feel that it would be wise to mention that it was her first idea, keeping that information to herself. "Look, I'll go find Mister Lancer and I'll get everything straightened out, okay? But _don't,"_ she added, glaring back at Star, "...get mad at _me _for something the _administration _mixed up."

Sam could understand Star's annoyance, but it simply wasn't her fault. Although she dreaded going to see Mr. Lancer after she'd ditched detention yesterday, he was one of the more reasonable teachers at Casper. There was also her math teacher, but that guy just never had much of a presence, and Mr. Lancer _was _also the vice principal.

"That won't change the fact that we'll _still_ have to eat this _garbage_ today, Manson." Star didn't seem to want to back down. But then, she had always been very confrontational. She was worse than Paulina, in that matter. "You know what I think you should do, Manson?" She asked, not waiting for Sam to answer. "I think you should have to order us all pizza for lunch. After all, everyone _knows _you're loaded, your parents only _own _Manson Inc!"

"Come on Star, can't you just give her a break? She already apologized for the mix up." Danny spoke up, coming up behind Sam. She hadn't known for how long he'd been there, but it was apparently long enough to get the gist of things. The raven haired boy grinned down at her, pulling his hands out of the pockets of his flight jacket to embrace his girlfriend lightly.

"If you want pizza, just order it yourselves. If you can get it past Lancer, that is." He added, with a grin.

To that, Star didn't have much of a response, and simply huffed, turning on her heel and storming angrily away. The crowd slowly started to disperse, some of them still grumbling about it, others mumbling that it might not be so bad to put up with the new menu for just a day. Some of the choices actually looked pretty tasty, upon second glance. Sam glanced up at Danny, smiling at him.

"Not quite a knight in shining armor," she said, pinching the fuzzy material of his flight jacket's sleeve a little, "...but I suppose you'll do."

"Well, to be fair, you're not quite a damsel in distress either." Danny grinned, resting his chin on the top of her head. "But you don't hear me complaining about it."

Sam flushed a little bit, placing her hands over where Danny's joined around her torso. "Hm. Enough to go along with me to chat with Mr. Lancer? He's probably not going to be too happy about our latest escape attempt."

"My dear Sam, I would gladly die for you." Danny joked quietly. "You know, if I weren't _already_ dead."

"Hm, and who was it that was telling me not to talk about such things where someone might overhear me the other day?" Sam asked, ducking out from Danny's grasp, though she clasped one of his hands in her own as she did so. "But I will accept the intention, if not the possibility of your words."

"I have no idea what that even means." Danny said, still grinning as he took Sam's hand.

"And hear I was hoping that you would, so you could tell me." Sam teased him, walking with him towards Mister Lancer's room. "Now, back to the medieval times metaphor, would Lancer in this case be the fire breathing dragon?"

* * *

As it was still the early morning, the cafeteria doors were closed, and the workers had yet to arrive. Oddly, the cafeteria wasn't empty. Standing behind the lunch counter there was a perplexed looking woman, who was rather quite chubby and had graying hair tucked beneath a hair net. For all the world, she looked like she belonged there though, wearing a cafeteria worker's apron and gloves. The fact that her skin was a rather sickly green shade, and that she had an ever so faint glow about her gave away her true nature however, she wouldn't be able to fool anyone for more than two seconds.

"Well now that's just strange." She mused, looking over the menu displayed behind the counter. "That can't be right, that can't be right at all. I'm sure they would have told me if they were going to change the menu." She frowned deeply, a worried expression on her face.

"Where on earth has all the meat gone?"

* * *

Not quite a fire breathing dragon, Mr. Lancer was nonetheless not pleased when Sam and Danny came through his door. Though he remained civil, and promised to investigate what went wrong with the menu change, he reminded them that they would need to make up the detention that they missed in no uncertain terms. He had called Samantha's parents shortly after she had left with Danny, and from the rings under her eyes, he got the impression that she had been punished for her misbehavior.

Daniel, on the other hand, had no parents for him to call, nor any other relatives that Mr. Lancer was aware of. He wondered if perhaps their absence was related to his oft times delinquent behavior. He was well aware that he roomed with Tucker Foley, one of his former students who had graduated just last year, and had considered asking Tucker about Daniel's family background, for it troubled him. He get the feeling that he wouldn't talk about it either, if he knew.

With that over with, Danny and Sam cautiously took their leave, laughing nervously to each other once they had left the classroom. "Come on, we'd better get to class." Sam told Danny, giving his hand a squeeze. "I don't think we should test Mister Lancer's patience by being too tardy today." She said, noting that the hallways were almost empty by now. She had heard the five minute warning bell ring while they were talking to Mister Lancer, and some students had filtered into his classroom then, but she hadn't realized how long they'd been talking.

"That's probably a good idea." Danny laughed a little, glancing back towards Mr. Lancer's classroom. As they walked by the cafeteria, his expression changed though, and he left go of Sam's hand, a cold breath escaping from his mouth. Glancing back, Sam saw it, and exchanged a look with him, before they both glanced towards the cafeteria.

Silently, making sure that the hallways were indeed empty, they crept towards the cafeteria doors. Upon testing them, Sam discovered that they were locked, and frowned deeply. She motioned towards them with her head to Danny, who nodded, getting what she was trying to say. Carefully, he wrapped his arms around her, double checking to see if there was anyone around. He knew from experience that there weren't any video cameras here to catch them, as he turned intangible, allowing the pair to quietly slip through the doors.

Almost as soon as they turned visible, the ghostly lunch lady turned around, smiling at the two children with something of a confused expression. "Oh excuse me you two, can you help me?" She asked sweetly, then paused, frowning as she looked at Danny, tilting her head as if she was trying to remember something. Whatever she was trying to think of seemed to not come to mind as she appeared to quickly dismiss her thoughts. "Can either of you tell me what happened to the lunch menu? It seems they've changed it without informing me."

"Informing you?" Danny asked, his eyebrows knitting together as he exchanged a glance with Sam. This was clearly a ghost, there was no mistake about it, but she sounded as if she thought she belonged here. There was something vaguely familiar about her as well, Danny thought, but it took a moment for things to snap into place. A strange look washed over his face then as he realized he knew _exactly _who this ghost was.

She had been the lunch lady back when he was still alive, back when he was going to the first Casper High that once stood in this spot. She didn't seem to either remember or recognize him, though, which he took for a small blessing. At any rate, she didn't _seem _like she would cause any trouble, just that she was terribly confused. She probably didn't even realize that she _was _dead.

"Oh, well I had campaigned to change the lunch menu, and it went through but-" Sam started to explain, looking curiously at Danny as she spoke. What was that expression? She would have to ask him about it later. She didn't need him to tell her though, for her to realize that this ghost wasn't aware that it was a ghost. Sam's explanation was cut off then, by a gust of sudden wind, as the ground quaked underneath their feet slightly.

_"You __**changed **__the lunch menu?" _The booming voice was much different than the sweet one Sam had heard a moment ago, and her gaze quickly snapped back to the ghostly lunch lady. Where there was once a sweet (though rather green) older lady, this one had veins bulging out of everywhere in fury, ghostly red eyes blazing. In the space of a heartbeat, she leapt over the counter, lunging towards Sam in a fury.

And in the space of another heartbeat, blue light flashed around Danny, switching him over towards his Phantom form, for once not caring who saw as he leapt to Sam's defense. Sam herself ducked out of the way, allowing Phantom to move in, blocking the ghost's lunge with a swift kick to the head. He seemed to wince a little as he did so, seeming to regret having to attack her, but he wanted her to hurt Sam even less.

For a moment, the ghostly lunch lady stayed down, and Phantom to help Sam to her feet. "Are you okay?" He asked her, as the goth girl brushed dust from her skirt.

"Yeah, I think so. What was _that _about?" Sam asked, glancing back towards the lunch lady. She gave a start then, shoving Phantom quickly out of the way, just in time for an ectoplasmic blast to fly past them both, impacting with the wall and leaving a large hole.

The ghost was back on her feet- or rather, she was floating above the ground, an indoor wind swirling about her as pots and pans clattered behind the lunch counter. Raising her arms, there was a small change in this indoor wind, and not moments later, piles upon piles of meat, stockpiled in cafeteria refrigerators, poured out from the door, wrapping around the ghost until it encased her in something resembling full body armor.

Armor made out of meat.

"So, first we get ghost octopi, and now we get meat controlling, bipolar lunch lady ghosts?" Sam couldn't resist quipping, glancing over towards Phantom. He'd gotten back to his feet, and carefully moved Sam behind him. "What's next, some kind of box obsessed ghost?"

"Maybe they're saving the good ones for last." Phantom couldn't resist quipping back, a slight grin appearing on his face. There were still traces of an unreadable expression on his face, but now wasn't the time for such questions. Bipolar or not, this ghost didn't seem all that powerful, and Phantom was on his guard now, so there wasn't any chance of another surprise attack. He'd confirmed that the Fenton Thermos worked the other night, now he just needed...

And then he paused, eyes widening as he realized that he didn't have it with him. No, the Fenton Thermos he had stuffed in his locker upon getting to school. With that thought in his head, he jumped out of the way to avoid a blast of, well, meat, that the ghost fired at him, causing him and Sam to split off in two directions as they dodged it. "Sam!" He called out to her, realizing that she was closer to the doors than he was. "Run to my locker and get the Thermos!"

"No offense Da-Phantom, but I don't think that this is the time for soup!" Sam called back, looking confused.

Phantom realized then that he hadn't shown her the Fenton Thermos yet, wondering how that managed to slip his mind. "It's not for that! Just- just go get it!" He called over, firing an ectoplasmic blast at the meat covered lunch lady ghost. It fell back, but the meat around it seemed to cause a regenerating effect, the meat armor falling perfectly back into place.

Sam gave a quick nod, sprinting towards the door. The ghost made to follow her, clearly more intent on taking care of the one who had changed the menu, rather than the one that was actually attacking her. Phantom moved in the way, however, firing off another ectoplasmic blast at her, and then another, allowing Sam to slip out the doors, remembering to unlock them so she could actually get back in when she came back later.

Classes were already underway now, but Sam but all of her earlier worries about being tardy aside and sprinted towards Danny's locker, skidding to a stop as she almost ran past it. Quickly putting in the combination, grateful that the school's lockers now had electronic locks on them so to that Danny had to trust her with his combination in order to get it open, she flung the doors open once she heard it beep. Shuffling through the contents, she soon found the buried Thermos.

A look of understanding came across her face as she pulled it out, realizing that it was a piece of Fenton Tech. Leave it to Jack Fenton to make a _Thermos _a piece of anti-ghost weaponry. Slamming the locker shut, he hurried back towards the cafeteria just in time to have to duck out of the way of another mass of meat, the gathered meats slamming into the lockers directly behind her.

"Phantom!" She called out, tossing him the Thermos. Phantom caught it, nodding to thank Sam, before turning towards the ghost, quickly uncapping the Thermos. A beam of ghostly blue light flowed out, trapping the ghost in it, sucking her into it. After the light faded, Phantom quickly capped it, turning back into Danny before neatly landing back on the ground.

"Thanks Sam. We should probably duck out of here before someone comes to investigate though." Danny told her, hurrying over towards her. Not a moment after he said that though, Jack Fenton came barreling through the doors to the school, wielding a megaphone in one hand and a very large anti-ghost bazooka in the other.

Danny and Sam winced as he switched the megaphone on, feedback bouncing over the school walls. "**Students of Casper High School, do not be alarmed!" **He began, unnecessarily shouting into the megaphone. Doors to classrooms began to open, teachers and students peering out in curiosity. Danny groaned lowly, putting a face to his hand, feeling embarrassed for Dani and Jazz already. Taking Sam in one hand, he ducked behind the cafeteria doors with her.** "We have come to neutralize your ghost situation!"**

"Jack, according to these readings, the ghost is gone now." Maddie told him, glancing at a hand held device.

"Oh." Jack paused for a moment, before switching the megaphone on again, causing the watching students to cover their ears from the feedback. **"In that case, nevermind!"**

Danny and Sam exchanged a look as they heard the two leave. Danny put a finger to his lips, wrapping his arm around Sam as he silently phased them through the floor and into the basement. "We should _probably _hide here until things calm down a little." He told her.

"Lancer's going to be pissed." Sam commented.

* * *

That was an understatement.

Mr. Lancer had kept them in detention once everyone else serving it had gone home, and hadn't taken his eyes off them for a single moment. They'd ran out of homework to do halfway through it, and not being allowed to talk to each other, they both couldn't have been happier when Mr. Lancer announced that they were free to leave. Danny had offered to walk Sam home, which she had accepted.

"By the way, Danny," she asked, looking up at him as she held his hand, frowning slightly. "There seemed to be something bothering you about that ghost."

"Huh?" Danny glanced down at her, biting the corner of his lip as she brought it up. "Oh, it's nothing much. It's just that... I used to know her, you know?" Danny rubbed the back of his head, struggling to put his thoughts into words. "She used to be _my_ lunch lady back when I was in high school. Of course, she wasn't all... bipolary then." He said, making a small face. "It kind of brought the whole cataclysmic fire back home in a way that I haven't had to face yet."

Sam didn't need to ask to know that this ghost had still been alive by the time the Great Amity Park Fire swept through, and grasped Danny's hand tighter for it. It must have been hard, hard beyond all words to lose so many people you knew all at once. There was more to it than just that, Sam knew, but Danny had never talked to her about it. She felt that some part of him wanted too... but in the end, it seemed that he just couldn't.

But she could wait. Someday he'd be able to open up to her all the way. Smiling at him, she squeezed his hand a little. "Don't let it trouble you." She reassured him. "It's not your fault, after all."

There was that look again, but this time, Sam chose not to peruse it. "There's my house. You'd better let me go here. My parents probably wouldn't be happy to see me walking home with you." Sam told him, standing on her toes to give him a quick kiss on the lips. "You get that old ghost back to the Ghost Zone, okay?" She called out to him, as she started further down the sidewalk, waving.

Danny smiled a bit, nodding his head. "I'll be sure to. Hopefully she won't trouble us again."

"I'll see you tomorrow then, Danny!" Sam called out, before turning to hurry back home. Danny watched her until she went into her house, and then, silently turned into Phantom, flying off into the distance.


	5. A Pursuer From One Hundred Years Ago

Author's Note: Oops I wrote this instead of what I was supposed to write. Now how did _that _happen? Oh well! Here is this thing that is definitely a thing. Also oops, I guess I was lying about this being a 'lighter' fic. Or well, it's mostly the past stuff that's going to get pretty heavy I guess, less of the future stuff.

Danny Phantom isn't mine, y'all! I hope you enjoy though.

* * *

The Once and Future Phantom

Chapter Five: A Pursuer From One Hundred Years Ago

"Tucker, there are too many ghosts here."

"I hear ya." Tucker glanced back at his friend as he stumbled in early that morning. Casting an eye towards him, the techno geek let out a low whistle. "That bad of a night, huh? It's a good thing you don't need sleep, dude, otherwise you'd be a real wreck at this point."

"Tell me about it." Danny groaned, flopping down on an empty chair, stretching his feet out. "I'm already dead, I don't even know what my excuse is for being this tired. I guess it's mental or something, I don't know. _Jazz _is the psychologist, not me."

"You mean your great grand-niece?" Tucker joked, flashing a grin at his ghostly friend. Danny responded by picking up a nearby book, and chucked it at his head. Tucker dodged it, laughing all the more. "Right right, I know, no jokes about the age or the family. Do they even have any idea that they're related to you? I mean, I know Jack and Maddie don't, but what about Jazz and Dani?" He asked.

"Nah, they've got no idea, and I intend to keep it that way." Danny said. "Which is part of the reason why I had you destroy all the old records. Don't want anyone accidentally stumbling on any old articles. Besides, have you seen how much Jack admires his great grandmother? No way am I telling him what she was _really _like." He waved a hand, dismissing the idea entirely.

"What _was _she really like?" Tucker asked his friend, glancing over at him. "You never told me."

There were actually any number of things that Danny had never told Tucker, despite the two being friends. It wasn't that he didn't trust Tucker, but rather, it seemed as if one hundred years after the fact, Danny still didn't seem ready to talk about those sorts of things. It made Tucker wonder exactly what had gone down when Danny was still alive.

He knew a few things, of course. He knew that before he had died, Danny had been half-ghost, half-human, rather than whatever you might call him right now. Half-ghost, half-zombie, maybe, without the brain eating part. All dead either way, as opposed to being just half-dead as he had once been. Tucker didn't even begin to try and wrap his head around that idea, it sounded far too complicated, and biology was not exactly his thing. He knew that Danny Fenton was the son of Grace and Richard Fenton, and the older brother of Miranda Fenton, one of the only survivors from the Great Amity Park fire one hundred years ago.

The fire that had killed Danny. That was a point that always got Tucker- Danny of that time had superpowers, so surely he could have found a way to survive the fire? Unless there was some reason that he didn't want to- no, no, that was way too dark, he wasn't even going to go down that line of thinking. So, Danny had died, and his little sister had lived. His parents had both died as well, and that was another thing Tucker had noticed- Danny didn't like talking about his parents. He didn't like talking about his younger sister either, but it was his parents that really got to him.

It wasn't hard for Tucker to come up with a theory there. He was half-ghost, and they were ghost hunters. It was pretty basic math.

That line of thought lead down a dark path too, so Tucker didn't dwell on it often.

Lastly, Tucker knew that after the Great Fire, Danny had been the only ghost here for the past one hundred years. That is, until two weeks ago, and Jack and Maddie Fenton had restarted the Fenton Ghost Portal, the very thing that had caused Danny to become half ghost one hundred years ago. His parents had built it, and it had since sat in the basement of Fenton Works, broken since then. Tucker made a pretty good guess that the person who broke it after the fire was Danny, though he had never told him that.

"You don't need to know either." Danny said grimly, lips curving into a tight frown. Ah, there it was again, Tucker noted, that same kind of reaction he always had when speaking about them.

"Right, sorry I asked. Don't get all touchy, Danny." Tucker said, shrugging before he turned back to his computer.

Danny rolled his eyes, shaking his head. He pulled himself up from the chair, and headed back towards his own room. He couldn't get mad at Tucker for asking such questions, since he had no idea about the truth. Still, it wasn't a subject Danny much liked to dwell on. Even one hundred years after the fact, the things that had been done to him still refused to leave his mind, and he doubted that they ever would. It was a miracle, really, that he hadn't turned malevolent after he had died, that even then, at his darkest hour, he still had the sense of mind to try and save Miranda. He didn't know if it was his blasted hero complex, or something else, something deeper in his nature.

Tossing his white aviator goggles on his night stand, Danny unzipped his black flight jacket, tossing it to the side. Pulling off his boots, he stretched himself out a little. Sniffing at a bandaged hand a little, Danny made a small face. "Ugh, I _reek_." He said, cringing. "Tucker!" He called out. "I'm going to take a shower! You haven't done anything recently to gunk up the system, have you?"

"I told you Danny, that was a one time thing!" Tucker called back out from his own room. "Stop harping on about it already! I was just as inconvenienced as you were, ya know!"

"Right, right." Danny rolled his azure eyes, heading into the bathroom. Suspicious, he checked the shower to confirm it was indeed working properly this time, and not spewing strange purple liquid like it had that one time, he nodded his head, shutting it back off for the moment. He undressed at this point, and began to get to work at the rather complicated task of unwinding all of the bandages that he wore around his body. He paused mid-way, as if a revelation had just hit him, and he rolled his eyes, slapping his face.

"Oh right." He laughed, shaking his head. "I've had ghost powers for over one hundred years, and yet somehow I never remember I can do this." Turning intangible, he let the bandages slip off of him, piling around his feet. Resuming his solid state, he started up the shower, stepping into it. He had no idea what temperature it was, unable to discern between hot and cold anymore. He supposed it was a good thing, it would get pretty hot and stuffy in that jacket and the bandages pretty fast otherwise. Letting the water rush over him, he glanced down in mild disgust at his own torso, matted and riddled with scars, most of them burn scars from the fire. It was nasty, disgusting, all good reasons why he kept them covered. They only showed up in his 'human' form, of course, and they were also something he'd never shown Sam.

"At least I don't _smell _like a charred corpse." He muttered dryly. Sometimes he thought it would have been better if his ghost half had separated from his human half upon his death, and he never really understood why it hadn't. Still, it wasn't all bad, it made it easier for him to blend in with the human population of Amity Park. And it also meant that he could date Sam out in the open without anyone thinking there was anything too strange about it. He couldn't even begin to imagine the public's reaction if they learned that Phantom was dating a human girl.

That said, these days, Danny found himself favoring his ghost form more. There was something freeing about it, he thought. It had been different when he was actually alive, of course. Back then, he wanted to spend as little time as Phantom as he possibly could. If it weren't for his blasted hero complex, and his sense of responsibility for all the ghosts that were running loose in Amity Park, he would have never used it at all. But, he had thought back then, he was the one that had fixed the Fenton Ghost Portal, and thus he was the one who had released all of the ghosts in the first place. Therefore, it was only right that he, who had the powers to fight them, should do so.

Things might have been different if he had never bothered, if he had left it up to his parents.

On the other hand, he might have never met Sam. Or Tucker either, for that matter. Dani and Jazz might have never even been born, for all he knew. He did have to admit he was a lot less lonely now than he had been when he was alive. Grimly, Danny recalled that he didn't really _have _any friends back then. Thinking back on it, he had lead a pretty lonely life. The most social interaction he had gotten back then was with _ghosts, _not a pleasant thought.

Stepping out of the shower and switching it off, he shook out his hair. Turning intangible, he let the water that clung to his body fall off of him. Now dry, he returned to normal, and tossed away his old bandages, and grabbing some fresh ones from underneath the sink. Tugging on his boxers, he began the process of bandaging his chest and arms all over again. Well, that was true of his life then, he thought, but oddly enough, his life had gotten better after he had died. Oh sure, there was spending ten years in an empty, ruined city that he wasn't able to leave, but _aside _from that.

Danny grinned to himself a little then, recalling that he and Sam had a date for tonight, now that she wasn't grounded anymore. It was going to be a good night, and there was no way he was going to let ghosts ruin it. He'd turn over his ghost hunting duties to Jack and Maddie- or at least, he'd turn them over to Maddie. For someone who had obsessed over ghosts nearly his entire life, Jack Fenton wasn't exactly very good at hunting them, though he did have he moments.

* * *

The aforementioned ghost hunting couple was hard at work that morning. Or at least, the female half of it was. Despite it still being early, Maddie Fenton was at a computer, a cup of coffee by her side. The thing in her lap was practically archaic, battered and bruised black laptop that looked like it had been made sometime around 2010. It had been given to her by Phantom, of all people, who had dug it up from who knows where. She assumed it was his before the fire, and it got her to wondering exactly where it had been hidden so that it had survived. There were only a hand full of buildings still standing after the Great Fire, Fenton Works being one of them. Axion Labs was another, but unlike their home, those labs still lay as a ruin in to this day, a place for wayward teens to go and test their courage. The old city hall had survived as well, but it had been torn down over eighty years ago because of structural damage.

Phantom had told her that he was only loaning it to Maddie for the time being, and that she had better copy the files on the Ghost Zone and it's inhabitants while she could. The problem was figuring out exactly how to do that, Maddie mused, looking over the old thing. How on Earth was it still even _running_, she wondered. She then recalled that Phantom was sometimes spotted around one Tucker Foley, who was known for being a wizard with computers, and figured he must have been behind it.

Thankfully, the ancient laptop wasn't hard to operate. If the technology impaired Phantom could do it, surely anyone could. It struck her as odd, of course, that Phantom had such files on his computer to begin with, and she wondered once more exactly who he had been when he was alive. What kind of eighteen year old needed a laptop full of detailed information on the Ghost Zone and it's inhabitants? Still, it was all very useful information, and Maddie was grateful to have it. It would have taken months for her to gather this data by herself, her husband not being a very data orientated man.

Taking a sip of her coffee, she navigated through the files. Phantom had told her that these were the ghosts that had been around when he was alive, and that it was very likely that there were many more around now. She had seen some of these ghosts in the past two weeks, Maddie thought as she flipped through the files. There, that one with the boxes, she had seen him. And that grungy looking teenager with the motorcycle, he'd seen him too, along with what she supposed was his girlfriend in the red jacket. They were labeled as 'The Box Ghost', 'Johnny 13', and 'Kitty', she noted, all the ghosts in the files seemed to have names.

Maddie found herself pausing over one such file, a robotic ghost with green eyes and a flaming Mohawk staring back at her. He looked intimidating enough, but she laughed when she scrolled down to discover that his true form outside of the metallic battle suit was that of a tiny blob of ectoplasm with arms and legs. But the drastic change in appearance wasn't what made her pause at the file, although it was noteworthy. No, what made her pause was something else.

'Skulker', the file had said it's name was. It also said that it wanted to kill Phantom, and hang his pelt on his wall. The mental image was enough to make Maddie cringe, and she shook it off. The file called him the Ghost Zone's greatest hunter, and Maddie wondered exactly what it was about Phantom that caused the ghost hunter to want to have his pelt hung on his wall so badly. If it were Phantom as he was now, then Maddie would not be surprised, Phantom was the very definition of 'rare and unusual', but as she recalled that this was Phantom's laptop when he was alive, she realized that what he must have wanted was not a ghost, but a human.

Again, she wondered exactly who Phantom had been as a human. What made him so valuable to this ghost? Perhaps he had some kind of special power when he was alive, Maddie reasoned, and perhaps that was why he made such a strange ghost. A strong sixth sense, perhaps? That might explain the extensive ghost files on his laptop. Maddie knew that for four years before the Great Fire, Amity Park had been known as Ghost Central- much like it was today, she mused. If that were the case, then it wasn't strange that a boy with a strong sixth sense would find himself caught up with ghosts, even more so if he still had the hero complex that Phantom displayed.

Something about that explanation didn't quite sit right with Maddie for some reason, however reasonable it seemed. Of course, she had tried to access the laptop further than these files, but it was locked down tight. Phantom might be hopeless with technology from her generation, but from his own? He obviously knew what he was doing. He had created a user account for Maddie, and the only files on it aside from a basic program or two were these. Curiously, she noted that there were three accounts on the computer- if two were for her and Phantom, she wondered who the third could be for. Perhaps it was for Tucker, she thought, and it sounded reasonable enough. It did chafe at her a little, being so close to who Phantom had been, it literally sitting right in her lap, but being unable to access it.

What she did know, however, was that the idea of a ghost so passionately hunting a human being churned her gut, and struck a maternal chord in her. She couldn't help but think of one of her own daughters being hunted in such a fashion, and it was an idea that she could _not _stand. Grabbing a notepad, she jotted down a quick note, making sure that if she _ever _saw this ghost's face, that she was going to give it a piece of her mind.

* * *

"You gave your laptop to mom. Are you _crazy_, Danny?" Dani asked through clenched teeth, glancing over at the raven haired boy. It was a bit later in the morning now, and when she had come down to find her mother tinkering away with what she knew to be Phantom's laptop, she was more than a little surprised. She had only seen it once, but there was no way she could mistake that old ass piece of junk for anything else. She'd tried giving Phantom one of her old laptops to replace it once, but he had looked at it as if she had handed him an alien supercomputer.

Actually, now that she thought about it, that was a pretty accurate metaphor.

"Relax, Dani. I'm not stupid enough to hand her over something like that until I know it's locked down good and tight." Danny told her, reaching over to rub her hair. The fourteen year old girl couldn't help but grin at first, but then flushed, batting his hand away. She swore, sometimes Danny could act like an embarrassing older brother- which he had been mistaken for more than once. They really did look quite similar, once you got past the age and gender differences.

"Yeah, yeah." Dani said, nodding her head. "I get you. But couldn't you give her the files some other way?" She asked, looking over at him. Her eyes met with a perfectly blank expression, and then she laughed. "Oh right. You and modern day tech, I forgot." Reaching into her bag, she pulled out a cell phone, waving it in his face. "Ooh~ Here's a big scary modern cell phone~"

"Cut that out now." Danny frowned, crossing his arms in front of him, and glaring down at the younger girl. "How many times do I have to tell people I am not afraid of technology?"

"Says the ghost who nearly had a meltdown the other day when a technology ghost attacked." Dani pointed out.

"What? Okay, no, that was different, okay?" Danny said. That one had been a ghost that he didn't remember, but it wasn't someone he had met before this time, at least. "That was technology actively trying to _kill me_. I think fear is perfectly justified there."

"You're _already _dead, Danny, I don't think you've got anything to fear there." Dani rolled her eyes, tucking her cell phone back away.

"Figure of speech." Danny said, shrugging his shoulders. "Anyways, Dani, I thought you called me out here because there was something that you needed. Was it just about the laptop?" He asked her.

"Oh, no, it was something else actually." Dani said, recalling what she had wanted to talk about at first. "I actually have a question to ask you, Danny."

"Shoot." He told her.

"Why don't you like talking about great grandma?" Dani asked him.

Danny was more than a little taken aback by the question, having not been prepared for it. Come to think of it though, he knew that Dani idolized her great grandmother- his little sister- the same way that Jack idolized his own great grandmother- Danny's own mother. And to be fair, his little sister had gone on to be something of a ghost hunting legend as an adult. He'd never seen her in action of course, being cooped up in Amity Park, where he was the only ghost. Even though she moved back in the end, back to the old Fenton Works building, all of the ghosts she fought were from out of town. She would have done their parents proud, but Danny full well it wasn't her _parents _she had been trying to honor.

"W-what brought that on?" Danny stammered, rubbing the back of his neck. A nervous habit, Jazz would say, something he had never gotten rid of.

"I'm just curious." Dani told him. "Did she try and fight you or something back in the day?" She asked him.

"No, nothing like that." Danny assured her. "We had an understanding, her and I." He told her. It was true enough. It wasn't so much of a truce as it was a, 'I'll ignore you, if you ignore me' kind of thing. It had changed as she had gotten older and had children of her own. Sometimes she sought him out, despite being a woman in her mid-forties at that point, breaking down like the small girl he had remembered her as, wondering if she was being a terrible parent, fearful, afraid of repeating the same mistakes their own parents had.

She hadn't, though.

"Then why don't you like hearing about her?" Dani asked him. "I've noticed it you know, you always get nervous and act weird when I bring her up." And that was a lot- again, there was the whole idolizing deal going on here. "Does it have anything at all to do with why we look so alike?" She asked him after a moment.

Danny paled, frowning a little, suddenly unable to meet Dani's eyes. "Look, Dani. I'm sorry, but I'm not really ready to talk about it yet."

Dani pouted at this, but she heaved a sigh, accepting defeat. She didn't want to push Danny on subjects he was bad with. She did care for him, after all, in a sense, he _was _like an older brother to her. "Alright, I get it. Will you tell me someday?"

"Maybe. About your great-grandma at least." Danny assured her. Someone like Dani didn't need to know about her great-great grandparents.

"Right!" Dani cheered up at that, smiling at him. "While we're out, do you want to go check out a movie or something?" She asked him, batting her eyes.

"Let me guess. The R-rated horror movie that was just released is the one you want to see." Danny said, quirking an eyebrow.

"Good guess!" Dani smiled at him.

"Eh, sure, why not? I've got time to kill before my date." Danny shrugged his shoulders, then laughed a little. "Hey, Sam's parents are right! I _am _a bad influence."

* * *

"And then I missed the middle of the movie because a ghost decided to show up." Danny dryly told Sam, relating that day's events to her. The two of them were strolling down the street, hand in hand. He had come to pick her up for their date a little while ago, and as usual, Sam's parents weren't exactly thrilled to see him. Thinking about it from their perspective, Danny guessed he did look like something of a punk. A strange boy from one of the worst cities in the state, a city notorious for it's high crime rates, with one dead eye, who was always covered in bandages. It was no small wonder that they were wary of him.

"That's tough, Danny. Did you miss the best scene?" Sam asked.

"I missed the best scene." Danny said glumly. "Although Dani described it in _vivid _detail later. Her mother is going to kill me later, isn't she?"

Sam laughed. "Figuratively speaking, yes. Speaking of Mrs. Fenton, did you ever get your laptop back from her?"

"I did." Danny told her. "It's back with Tucker, he's checking it for bugs." He said with a small laugh. "Well, it's not like I would put it past her. It's not the first time she's tried to unravel the secret of Phantom. For knowing me for a lot shorter than Jack, she sure cares a whole lot more about who I was before I died. I don't think Jack's ever really thought too hard about it."

"I bet he'd be stunned to learn you're his grand uncle." Sam snickered underneath her breath, and Danny shot her a green eyed glare. "Right, right, I know, age jokes. I don't know why you're so stubborn about it, Danny, you don't _look _over one hundred."

"It's the principle of the thing." Danny told her, huffing slightly. "Also because it makes me feel a little creepy for dating you."

"If I'm not bothered by dating a one hundred year old zombie ghost whatever, then neither should you." Sam pointed out. "Besides, you _look _eighteen, which is the most important part. Nobody's really going to question it."

"I think Jazz knows." Danny told her. "At least, she looks at me funny sometimes."

"Oh yeah, she knows alright. She tried asking me about it, in that way, you know? Where she thinks she's being subtle, but in reality, she's really being incredibly obvious?" Sam said, shaking her head. "I gave her nothing, of course. If she wants to know the truth, she's going to have to ask you."

Danny laughed. "Fat chance. The last thing I need is for Jazz to turn me into her latest psychology project. She's already tried to do that to _Phantom_, so I would prefer a little anonymity as _Fenton_."

"And you are doing a bang-up job of that." Sam said, sarcasm tingeing her voice.

"Yeah, well, the ghost portal thing was not in my plans." Danny told her. "All I want is for this date to go off without any ghostly intruders. It would be _nice _for a change." Almost as soon as he said that however, a blue wisp came from his mouth, and he groaned, slapping his face. "Oh come on, _really_?"

"Fate is not kind to you." Sam observed, putting her own guard up as she looked around for the ghost.

"Tell me about it." Danny groaned, slipping into Phantom mode after seeing that there was nobody around.

"Well, well," the sound of the robotic voice would have made Danny's blood run cold. "It's been a _long _time, whelp."

Danny's eyes blazed green as he turned around to face the source of the voice, eyes falling on the battle suit clad ghost. "_Skulker_. I was starting to wonder when you were going to show up."

So a previous ghost enemy then, Sam noted, putting a bit of distance between the two ghosts. Wary of being targeted by this one, her hand fell on the ecto pistol she had hidden in her bag. She had actually been given it by Jack Fenton, of all people, who knew that Sam liked to hang out with Phantom, and thought she could use the protection. She wasn't sure if he meant protection from Phantom or from the other ghosts he fought, or perhaps both, but it was reassuring to have, at any rate.

"Indeed. You're surprisingly hard to track down, whelp, but this city has grown from what I last remember of it." Skulker said cooly, gaze moving towards Sam. "Oh, I see you finally found yourself that girlfriend you always wanted. Good for you! I'll take the both of you together, I think! It would be a shame to separate two lovers, after all."

"You are not touching one hair on Sam's head, Skulker." Phantom warned him, eyes narrowing. "Why are you still hunting me, anyways? In case you haven't gotten the memo, I'm not _half_-ghost anymore. All dead."

"Yes, but most ghosts don't port around their own corpse." Skulker pointed out, and Phantom had to admit, he had a point. "Besides that, a good hunter never gives up the hunt."

Phantom rolled his eyes, charging up an ecto blast and firing it off the hunter ghost. Skulker phased through it, and Sam knew that this was the sign that the fight had begun. Phantom didn't give Skulker any chance to counter, flying at him at top speeds, slamming his body against him and knocking him back. He collided with a nearby wall, forming a nice carter in it, and Sam briefly hoped that the home owners had insurance.

"I see one hundred years of disuse haven't made your skills rusty. All to the better!" Skulker commented, emerging from the rubble, a mini rocket launcher appearing from the shoulder of his suit, which he fired off at Phantom. He deflected it with an ecto blast, as well as the one that came after it. The hunter ghost closed the distance between them then, striking out with a heavy metal fist that sent Phantom flying this time. Skulker shot off two more mini rockets after him, but if he didn't catch them, Sam sure did, charging up her ecto pistol and taking them out herself.

"Oh, and she's a feisty one!" Skulker said, sounding delighted. "I like her already!"

"Wasn't looking for your approval." Phantom grunted, firing another ecto blast at Skulker, before rushing at him. He returned the punch, sending him flying with a well placed fist to the chin. He returned the favor of attacking while down, eyes briefly flashing blue as he flung two spikes of ice towards Skulker, which impacted with him, creating two holes in his battle suit.

Skulker recovered from this however, eyes narrowing, firing off an ectoplasmic blast at the ghost boy. Phantom avoided it, flying around it, before making himself take a deep breath, motioning to Sam to cover her ears. Realizing what was coming, she quickly did so, as Phantom let off a powerful ghostly wail that blew Skulker's suit apart, leaving behind only his helpless true form. Not wasting time, Phantom grabbed the Fenton Thermos, quickly sucking him up inside of it, and floated back down towards Sam's side.

"Come on, people will have heard that." Phantom said, scooping Sam up in his arms. She wrapped her own around his neck, grinning at him. "And thanks for the save back there, Sam."

"Well, as if I was going to let some ghost hurt my boyfriend." Sam told him, grinning back at him. "Taking him back to the Ghost Zone?" She asked.

"Taking him back to the Ghost Zone, and then date." Phantom assured her. "Through hell or high water, we will have that date."

"Another one for the Ghost Zone, Phantom?" Maddie asked as Phantom flew into the basement, pausing only to quirk a brief eyebrow at Sam, who was being carried in his arms. "Oh, hello Sam. I thought you had a date with Danny?"

"I got a little side tracked. I'll catch up with him in a few minutes, Mrs. Fenton." Sam lied. That seemed to satisfy the women.

"Well, alright then, Sam. I trust you to have more sense than to stand the poor boy up." Maddie nodded her head. "So, what do we have today?" She inquired, taking the Fenton Thermos from Phantom, strolling over to the portal. Inserting it into a whole on the wall, she pressed a few buttons, sending the ghost inside back to the Ghost Zone. It was a good thing Phantom had fished up the original notes on the Ghost Portal for the couple after they had turned it on, otherwise she might have had trouble figuring it out herself. Again, she wondered where exactly she had gotten them from, but if he'd been living in Amity Park for one hundred years, it wasn't strange that he knew where to find all sorts of old artifacts.

"Skulker." Phantom told her, distaste clear in his voice and on his face. "One in the files."

"Oh, _that _one." Maddie said, her own face crinkling. Darnit, she should have kept him around. If there was a ghost that deserved to be torn apart molecule by molecule in the pursuit of paranormal science, then it was one that got his kicks out of hunting a poor, innocent human boy. The fact that he had gone straight for Phantom indicated that he hadn't quite given up his hunt, though she wondered how she had recognized him so quickly. Surely Phantom didn't have the white hair when he was alive- green eyes, maybe, but white hair? She didn't think you could bleach it well enough to get that shade.

"If you don't mind me asking, Phantom, _why _was he hunting you before?" Maddie inquired, watching Phantom's face pale as she asked it. Ah, a touchy subject, she realized. Well, that wasn't a terrible surprise, she supposed. "You mentioned it in your files. I was just wondering why exactly a famed Ghost Zone hunter would have had such an interest in a human boy such as you were once." She said, trying to put it as delicately as possible. Phantom was sensitive about the subject of his death, she had noted.

Again, that wasn't exactly rocket science, that sort of thing did seem like it would be a touchy subject for just about anyone.

"I well," Phantom stammered, rubbing the back of his neck, eyes downcast. "You know, Maddie, I don't really know." Looking for an out from this line of questioning, he spotted Sam. "Look, I should probably get Sam back to her date with Danny. I don't want to hold him up for too long."

"Oh yes, of course." Maddie nodded. "Have fun, Sam. Don't get into any trouble. And make sure that blasted boy pays for you this time! I know we live in a time of gender equality and all, but I don't think it's right that you should always be the one who pays your way. He really ought to get off his lazy bum and get himself a job."

"Like there's anyone who would hire that technology impaired dolt." Sam joked lightly, eyes flashing briefly over towards Phantom, a taunting expression on her face. "I don't think he gets money from his parents either, Mrs. Fenton. I think his family situation is pretty complicated."

"_What?_" Maddie gasped, eyes narrowing. "Are you telling me that an eighteen year old boy is getting no financial support at all form his own parents? What are they _thinking_! He's a high school student! It's a parent's duty to support their children until they at least get out of college! First they send him here, _alone, _and now they don't even bother giving him living expenses? I swear, if I ever meet those two, I will give them a piece of my mind." Maddie said, making an motion with her hands that not so subtly implied that it would be delivered with her fists. "_I'll _hire the poor boy if it's what it takes to get some funds. I could use someone to help me in the lab when Jack isn't here. That isn't right!"

Phantom appeared to be slightly taken aback by this outburst, blinking and exchanging glances with Sam. She looked a bit floored as well, although less than Phantom. "I'll mention it to him, Mrs. Fenton. I don't know if he'll go for it though. You know he doesn't exactly _care _for the whole ghost hunting business?"

"Oh yes, that's right, isn't it?" Maddie frowned, mulling this over. "Well, tell him anyways. It's not right. Has he been depending on you and Tucker this entire time? Jazz too, I suppose." Sighing, she shook her head. "I'll find _something _for him to do. You know Jack and I are friends with the mayor, right? I don't mind abusing that to help out my daughter's friend."

Phantom frowned, listening to this without comment. He wondered how quickly Maddie would change her tune if she knew the truth about Danny Fenton, that he wasn't even human. That thought brought on a wave of bad memories, which he forced away, concentrating on the present. "Right, well," he spoke up, glancing between the two women. "That's all well and good and all, but we have to get going, Maddie!"

"Oh yes." Maddie blinked, suddenly recalling that she was holding Sam up even further. "Right, go on you two."

When they departed, Maddie shook her head once more, heading upstairs. Her husband Jack was sitting in the kitchen, chomping down on some fudge, and she smiled to see it. Sitting down next to him, she put her arms on the table, resting her head in them. "Jack, I just heard the most dreadfully disturbing thing."

"Are they outlawing fudge?" Jack asked quickly, eyes going wide.

"No, no, not that." Maddie couldn't help but chuckle at that, shaking her head. "It's about Danny. You know, Sam's boyfriend?" She asked him. Truth be told, she and her husband had only met him about three or four times. As much as he was friends with her daughters, he didn't seem to want to spend as much time around their parents. She had to admit, he was more than a little bit of an enigma. Not as much as Phantom was, but he was getting there.

Danny was eye catching, to say the least. It was something about the dead left eye, something about the fact that he was always heavily clothed, something about the fact that his hands were never seen sans bandages, bandages which, she had heard, extended further up his arms and chest. She suddenly got the feeling she had an explanation for them when she combined it with this latest piece of news, and it made her heart go out to the boy. He was very lucky to have found Sam, she thought, very lucky indeed.

"Oh, I know him." Jack nodded his head. "He's the _other _Fenton." The man chuckled, recalling his surprise when he heard that Sam's boyfriend's last name was also Fenton. Well, it wouldn't have been the first time he had run into someone with the same last name, he thought. There was that one girl in college, the ace of the girl's softball team. "What about him?"

"Apparently, his parents haven't been sending him a penny since he moved here. I had always assumed that he had a bank account or something that they wired funds to, and that they'd moved him here because his old hometown was anything but safe." Maddie told her husband. "But they haven't been supporting him at all! It's like they just threw their own son away! Who _does _that?"

Jack sucked in his breath. "That is serious, Maddie. Should we do something about it?"

"Maybe. I don't know Jack. What if we involve ourselves when he doesn't want us to?" She asked him. "I don't want to risk complicating his life even further. And it's not like he doesn't have a good thing going on here, what with Sam and everyone else... but it's not right, Jack. How could a parent abandon their own child? And if I don't miss my guess, I would say that they've done a lot more than _just _abandon him."

"If you're so worried about it, Maddie, why don't you ask him yourself?" Jack suggested. "As much as I don't like the fact that he lets Dani see all those R rated movies with him, he's a good kid." He said. "Funny though, sometimes I feel like we should know him better."

"Really?" Maddie asked, quirking an eyebrow. "I've never felt that at all, Jack. Dani _does _think of him as an older brother though." Leaning back in her chair, she frowned. "Perhaps I will ask him about it. Maybe I can get his parent's contact number from Mr. Lancer. I'm sure he has one on file."

"That's my Maddie!" Jack beamed, proud of his wife's caring nature and smart thinking. He had married a good woman, a good woman indeed.

* * *

Danny and Sam's date had gone by in a blur after that, Danny's mind not entirely focused on the here and now. Sam knew him well enough to recognize this, and had let him go early. Oh sure, she hadn't the fact that their long awaited date plans had been broken up, but she could also sense that Danny was in no mood to be doing all this cutesy romantic stuff. He had thanked her, giving her a quick kiss before he had headed back off to Tucker's place, lost in his own thoughts.

Tucker was asleep when Danny arrived there, but the boy always did keep odd hours. Danny could hear him snoring lightly from the other room. In the privacy of his own room, Danny let himself transform back into Phantom, spreading himself out over his rather unnecessary bed. It had been bought merely for appearances, since being dead, not only did Danny not need to sleep, but he also couldn't. Still, it was nice and comfy, and it was a good place to stretch out.

Kicking off his boots, Phantom turned over on the bed, staring at the ceiling. There was something that had visibly shaken him at Maddie's pure outrage from earlier, as if he had been waiting to hear someone to say something like that all of his life. Telling him that it was _wrong_, it _wasn't_ right, and telling him that they would do whatever they could to make it right. And even if Maddie was somewhat on the wrong page, she struck too close for his own comfort. Was he really that bad at covering it, he wondered?

No, that wasn't it.

Nobody had noticed back then after all.

Gritting his teeth, Phantom fought off unwanted memories again, letting out a frustrated sound. It had been a hundred years, when exactly was he going to get _over _it already? It was a stupid thought, really, his sister, who was far more well adjusted than him, to say the least, hadn't gotten over it either. Jazz would probably tell him something like 'you don't just get over these things', or something along those lines, being the budding psychologist that she was.

It would have been nice, he thought, to have someone like Jazz in his life back then. Someone like Sam, someone like Tucker, or Dani, hell he would take _Lancer. _At least the balding teacher seemed to have some level of concern for his students, critical as he could be of them. He wondered what it would be like if he had been born in a different time, this time. Wondered what it would be like to have Jack and Maddie as parents, instead of the ones he had ended up with. Would things have been different?

Of course they would have.

But that wasn't the fate he got. Maybe somewhere, in some other universe, things were different, and he hoped to high hell that the other him was being fucking _grateful _for everything he got.

Shaking off that bit of anger, Phantom focused his thoughts, floating upwards off the bed. Crossing his legs, he floated in mid-air, hanging upside down. Perhaps it would have been better if the Fenton Ghost Portal had never been started up again. Having to deal with metaphorical ghosts from the past was bad enough, he didn't exactly want to have to deal with literal ones. And what if one of them said something, or did something that gave things away to people, people who he didn't want to hear certain things?

At the very least, the portal hadn't caused another accident. It was a fluke thing, he guessed. There was no way that two people could have been made like him, not even in the span of a hundred years. He would hate to think about Dani or Jazz having to deal with ghost powers as well, and as much as Dani thought they were cool (and they were, just a little bit, he had to admit- flying was neat), there were a lot more downsides to them, especially when you were related to ghost hunters.

Then again, thinking back on it, he only had himself to blame for Jack taking an interest in ghosts. He knew Jack's parents, his little sister's children, had scorned ghost hunting. It was only after a chance meeting with Phantom one day that Jack became fascinated with ghosts, and started listening to his grandmother's stories more eagerly. If that hadn't, he wouldn't have set off the spark that would eventually cause Jack and Maddie to rebuild the Fenton Ghost Portal. He supposed this was somehow some form of irony.

A now familiar wisp of mist escaped from his lips then, and Phantom frowned, but then grinned, his mood suddenly brightening. He'd almost forgotten, after all this time, how therapeutic fighting ghosts could be when he was in a mood. And it was about time to let out some very misplaced aggression.


	6. Discomfort

Author's Note: Chapter six, let's get this ball rolling! As always Danny Phantom does not belong to me. Read and then review if you like, your feedback is always valuable to me! Kuki out, Peace!

* * *

The Once and Future Phantom

Chapter Six: Discomfort

Danny didn't exactly think that he would be spending his Sunday morning sitting at a kitchen table, looking at Maddie Fenton. He had gotten the impression that she might try to talk to him at some point in the future after last night, but he hadn't exactly expected her to call him out bright and early that morning herself. She had probably gotten his cell phone number off of Dani, he thought, and wondered if he should have a word with her later.

"So um, Mrs. Fenton," Danny began, drumming his fingers on the table, glancing from side to side. "What was it you called me out here for? I have to say, it's a little unexpected- we've sort of never talked all that much." He told her, massaging the back of his neck, trying not to dwell on the awkwardness of the situation.

"I heard from Sam," Maddie began, placing her hands on the table, folding them together as she met Danny's gaze. "...that you don't seem to be getting any financial support from your parents, Danny." She told him, her expression grim and serious. She had sent her husband away to shop for fudge, he would be gone for hours, and it would give her plenty of time to conduct a serious conversation with the strange young man who sat in front of her.

At times, Maddie wondered which was the bigger enigma- the ghost, Phantom, or this boy, Danny Fenton. For someone who came from such a rough city, he seemed like an awfully sweet boy, Maddie thought, seemingly untouched by the brutality the city he came from was known for, though at times he seemed strangely familiar to her, like she had seen him before. She had of course, never been to Danny's home town, so that was rather absurd. But there was something about him that seemed strangely familiar, and when she had met him the first time, it felt like she had already known him on some level for years. Perhaps that was what Jack was referring to, this strange sensation that they should know him better.

There was of course, the almost eerie resemblance to her youngest daughter, a resemblance which she suspected would only grow when Dani was the age Danny was now, but Maddie chalked that one up to coincidence. After all, they did say that there were at least three people in the world who looked like you, didn't they? But there were some strange things about Danny that she couldn't simply ignore- all those bandages, for one thing, not to mention the dead eye. It was that which caught her attention the most, a blind left eye, an old scar running through it. Judging from the way it had healed, she would have guessed that it was at least four years old.

"Ah, well, about that..." Danny began, rubbing the back of his head, trying to figure out an excuse. It would have been so much _easier _to explain if Tucker's false profile of him had claimed that his parents were dead, but apparently that would cause too many issues and Tucker didn't want to have to bother to forge all of those documents just so Danny could spend a year or two going to school with Sam, pretending that he was a normal teenager. Finally, Danny gave up, placing his hands on the table. "No, they don't."

"Why haven't you told anyone this, Danny?" Maddie asked, concern in her voice. "Aside from Tucker and Sam, I'm under the impression that nobody else knows about it. This is a _serious _issue! Your parents _should _be supporting you until you can support yourself, which you clearly cannot." She paused then. "No offense meant by that, I'm sure you would be quite competent at taking care of yourself, Danny."

Frowning a little, Danny decided to take a gamble. "That's because... they- they don't exactly know I'm _here_." He told her after a moment. "I had Tucker do some things with my records so they couldn't be alerted to my presence here. And he makes sure it _stays _that way."

"So you ran away from home, then?" Maddie asked, which got a quick nod. "I see. But why would you run away? Most kids don't do that until they're at the end of their ropes." She asked him. "If it's something serious, Danny, we can get people to intervene, I _know _people who can do so." She told him, and suddenly, Danny felt vaguely guilty for lying to her. She really did seem to only want the best for him.

"That's..." Danny frowned, rubbing the back of his neck again, casting his gaze anywhere but Maddie's face. "I don't really like to talk about it much. It's nothing personal, Mrs. Fenton, it's not like I don't trust you or anything, it's just not a subject I'm comfortable talking to people about. But it's also not something that you need to get involved in, I can promise you that."

"Does it have anything to do with all of the bandages?" Maddie asked. When that got a flinch from Danny in response, it only confirmed her suspicions. "Danny, if your parents have been physically abusing you in any way, then something needs to be done- they _need _to face punishment. You can't just keep running away from it."

"I- no, it's not that they have anything to do with these." Danny stammered out, still not meeting her gaze. One hundred years, and he was still a lousy liar. The fact that he hated lying was a good part of that, he thought. "It-it's just sort of complicated. And really, Mrs. Fenton, you don't need to do anything, just the thought is enough, really it is." He half-pleaded with her. If she pressed this too far, then people would find out that his parents not only didn't exist, but that his records had been forged, and then all of this would go up in smoke. And he wasn't going to have that.

Maddie frowned deeply, considering the boy in front of her. He was desperately, desperately, trying not to let her get involved, she could tell. It struck her as odd, especially since he hadn't exactly denied that his parents had been physical abusive. Then again, exactly what level of physical abuse had they been giving him that he felt required to conceal most of his body underneath bandages? She cringed mentally at the thought, though her expression didn't change. Perhaps there was more to it than just that then, some kind of accident that left scarring seemed likely. Scarring that he didn't want anyone else to see.

Staring so intently at him, she noticed when a blue wisp of mist came from his mouth, and the startled expression that followed it. Maddie blinked, eyebrows creasing. "What was that?" She asked.

"What was what?" Danny asked quickly back, glancing around the room as if he expected to see something.

"That- that stuff that came from your mouth. Some kind of blue mist." Maddie told him, sounding stupid saying it out loud.

"Blue mist? There's nothing like blue mist." Danny nervously laughed, rubbing the back of his neck again. He had sensed a ghost- but where was it? He couldn't see it anywhere, and surely there would be no ghost stupid enough to come inside the house of ghost hunters of their own free will.

Well, except for _him_, he thought.

"I was sure that I saw-" Maddie frowned, looking puzzled, when she heard a knock on the door. Frowning deeper, she turned towards it, then glanced back over towards Danny, giving him a quick smile. "One moment, Danny. Let me see who this is." She told him, before sauntering over towards the front door and opening it up. Danny watched in a bit of apprehension, although logic told him that a ghost wouldn't exactly go up and knock on someone's front door.

Indeed, the man that came in was not a ghost, but rather, the mayor of Amity Park, Vladimir Masters, a man in his late forties, who was close friends of Jack and Maddie Fenton. They had met in college, Danny recalled, Jack was his roommate. He had been hospitalized for some time during college, but after that he had bounced back and had become one of the richest, most powerful men in America. And then he had decided to move to Amity Park and run for mayor, for reasons that Danny didn't fully grasp.

Human or no, somehow Danny wasn't inclined to trust the guy. There was something about him that oozed 'slime ball', something in the way he gazed at Maddie and glared at Jack whenever his back was turned. Dani didn't seem to care too much for him either, but Jazz was rather neutral. Of course, Jack loved him, and thought of him as his best buddy, oblivious to the fact that it didn't seem as if Vlad shared all of his feelings.

Then what had set of his ghost sense? Danny wondered. Well, he guessed it could have just been a ghost passing overhead- there was no written rule that a confrontation would always follow his ghost sense going off. It had been like that lately though, it seemed- had it been that way one hundred years ago? Suddenly, Danny couldn't recall exactly, and grimaced, wondering if he really _was _getting old.

"Ah, Maddie, always good to see you again." Vlad smiled, in that way that sent shivers up Danny's spine. He paused, noticing Danny now too, who had come out of the kitchen himself, peering into the living room. "And young..." Vlad frowned at this, clearly trying to recall his name. Being friends with Dani and Jazz, the two of them had met once or twice, but their confrontations weren't all that noteworthy. "...Daniel, was it?" He finally finished.

"It's Danny." The raven haired boy corrected him. His gaze flickered back to Maddie then, before turning back to Vlad. "Um, should I go or something, if you two want to talk in private?"

Just as Maddie was beginning to tell him that it wouldn't be necessary, Vlad spoke over her, cutting her off. "Yes, if you don't mind that terribly, lad." The mayor said, casting a cold glance towards Danny that pretty much told him to skeedaddle.

"No, that won't be a problem." Danny said, merely arching an eyebrow as he met Vlad's eyes. Yes, he thought to himself, there was surely something that he did not like about this man. Something about him that just made his skin crawl, there was something cold in his gaze, something Danny knew all too well. It wasn't there when he looked at Maddie, but it was present for almost anyone else- it wasn't even hidden when it was directed at Jack. At any rate, Danny's instincts told him not to trust this man, and his instincts generally hadn't failed him before. He was more than a little uncomfortable leaving Maddie alone with him, but figured that the mayor of Amity Park probably wouldn't do something that would compromise his post ion.

"Very good." Vlad gave him a chilling smile, assessing the boy with that cold gaze. "Now Maddie, if you have time I would love to hear your input on what we should do to reduce the threat of ghost attacks on our citizens."

"You could just leave it to Phantom!" Dani chimed in, grinning as she arrived home. "Oh, hi Danny! I didn't expect to see you here." She added the last part, sounding a bit sheepish when the older boy sent a slight glare in her direction. "He'll fight off all of the bad ghosts!" She told Vlad.

The mayor looked less than convinced, a look which Maddie shared on some level. In fact, Vlad outright scoffed at the idea. "Leave the protection of the city up to some adolescent specter?" He laughed at the very idea, shaking his head. "Oh no, my child, that simply won't do. We can't leave the safety of our city up to the whims of a likely soon to be senile ghost."

Danny twitched at that, having to bite down on his lip from voicing his very personal offense at that comment. He was _not _going senile, age did not mean the same thing to ghosts that it did to humans. Thankfully, Vlad's attention wasn't turned towards him at the moment, but rather towards Dani. "You sound like you think you know Phantom well, Mr. Masters." Danny remarked finally, quirking an eyebrow as he reigned his temper under control. "But if you think he's at risk of going senile, I don't think you understand Phantom, or ghosts in general."

"Danny does have a point." Maddie spoke up. "Phantom might be a hundred years old, but ghosts more or less maintain the same age mentality they had when they died." She told Vlad. "Well, that said, I'm not too keen on leaving the protection of the city up to Phantom myself either. He is a ghost, after all, even if he is your friend, Dani- I trust him to some extent, and I find it highly unlikely that he'll turn out to be malicious after one hundred years of unchanging behavior patterns, but I do think it's risky none the less."

"Aw, c'mon mom, Phantom's great!" Dani protested, briefly shooting a look over towards Danny as she said this. Maddie didn't catch this, but Vlad did, briefly arching an eyebrow. He seemed to brush it off as the two of them being in agreement with each other- he had heard that Danielle and Daniel were close friends. "He's always helping people, even before the ghosts came to Amity Park! He's a regular superhero, I'd say."

"That may be, but I prefer leaving the safety of human beings to human beings." Vlad told her, stone faced expression implying that there was really no arguing with him on this matter, his mind had already been made up. "And from the way I understand it, Phantom's too powerful to be trusted entirely. You've said it yourself before, haven't you, Maddie?" He asked, looking over towards her.

"Something to that effect, yes." Maddie nodded her head. "Phantom's a very powerful ghost, at least A Rank, possibly even S Class. I've never been able to get a stable power reading on him, that in of itself worries me." She frowned. "It's possible that his own power could overwhelm him and he could one day lose control without meaning to. It could possibly be triggered by something, some sort of emotional stimuli. That's actually another peculiar thing I've noticed about Phantom, though I'm not sure I've ever mentioned this to you, Vlad. He appears to have emotions of some kind, proper ones, not just the kind of vague, ghostly echoes that most ghosts have."

"Really now?" Vlad asked, raising his brows. "That is interesting."

Danny's eyes narrowed, suspiciously glancing over towards Vlad. There was something in his tone, something that made Danny think that he knew something more than he was saying. However, his thoughts were cut off when Vlad glanced back in his direction.

"Weren't you going to leave, Daniel?" Vlad asked. "And Danielle, I do hope you don't mind, but I was hoping to have this conversation with your mother in private."

"No problem, Mr. Masters, Danny and I will go spend some time together!" Dani chirped, walking over to the raven haired boy and grabbing his hand, beaming up at him. "Won't we, Danny?" She asked him.

"Yeah, sure." Danny said, finally, breaking gazes with Vlad, to turn and look down at her. "Come on, let's go find Sam and Tucker. It's a nice day out, maybe we'll all head to the water park." He offered.

"Great! Just let me run upstairs and get my swimsuit!" Dani clapped happily. "I'll invite Jazz, too!" She said, darting upstairs.

"Don't forget to bring sun screen!" Maddie called out after her, faintly hearing her daughter respond, before turning back towards Vlad. "Now then, Vlad, why don't we discuss this in more depth down in the lab? Jack and I are working on some inventions that you might very well be interested in."

"Yes, let's do that." Vlad smiled at her, pausing once to give a cursory glance back towards Danny, who shot back a quick glare. It only seemed to amuse the mayor, who turned back around, and followed Maddie down towards the lab.

"Yep. I _definitely _do not like that guy." Danny said aloud, once they were out of ear shot, crossing his arms in front of him. "Some kind of fruit loop or something."

* * *

It was a rather impromptu gathering, after all, so nobody was quite surprised when it took the various members of their group awhile to gather up. Tucker was the last to arrive, and everyone split off after that, heading towards various changing rooms. The good weather had held up, and it already seemed like the coming summer was going to be a hot one, if this was what spring felt like. Danny grabbed himself an out of the way place to change, while Tucker, already changed into a pair of red swim trunks himself.

"You know, you could just hang out with us as Phantom." Tucker suggested, keeping his voice low.

"Yeah, well, I already invited everyone as Danny. You guys hanging out with Phantom when you're supposed to be with Danny would be a little too weird." He responded from behind the door. "That, and Jazz is with us."

"She's already suspicious of you, you know that right?" Tucker asked him. "Why don't you just come out and tell her too? I mean, she's like Dani, she's not going to tell her folks."

"Jazz is too smart for her own good. Toss her a bone and she might go searching for things I don't want found." Danny told him frankly, coming out of the changing room. He wore a simple pair of blue swim trunks with white lining at the bottom, and a loose white tank top. Underneath that, there were bandages still, around his arms and chest as usual, but he had also bandaged up his legs, down to his ankles, all water proof, of course. "Besides, she'll never make the logic leap on her own. You know Jazz doesn't even care about ghosts anyways, not like her folks do."

"True enough, I guess." Tucker shrugged his shoulders. "Though I don't know what is more eyebrow raising frankly, you in all of those bandages, or Phantom going for a swim." He quipped. "At least Phantom can swim."

"Yeah, yeah, but someone fully clothed in the pool area would look even weirder." Danny shrugged his shoulders, stowing his stuff inside a locker. "You coming, Tuck?"

"Looking forward to seeing what kind of swimsuit your girlfriend is wearing, huh?" Tucker asked, shooting his friend a sly grin.

"You know it's probably just going to be the purple one piece again, right?" Danny asked. "Sam doesn't really care about things like swim wear. Up until two years ago, she was still wearing that bat cape and mourning hat every time she went to the pool."

"True enough." Tucker shrugged his shoulders. "But you never know, she might surprise you."

"Doubt it." Danny laughed. "Sam's full of surprises, but she's not exactly the type to buy new clothes to impress me. _Paulina_, on the other hand," Danny chuckled, shaking his head. "Is it just me, or do her dresses get more and more elaborate every 'first anniversary of Phantom saving her' day?"

"No, it's not just you. I'm not sure who she gets to make those things, but they must be making a fortune off of every dress." Tucker laughed, heading out of the locker room. The girls were already waiting for them, and sure enough, Sam had defaulted to her usual purple one piece swimsuit. Jazz, likewise, was wearing an aqua one piece, and Dani was wearing a red and white striped tankini.

"Took you boys long enough." Sam commented, smirking a little.

"Well you know Danny, he just takes forever to get ready." Tucker teased, wrapping an arm around his friend's shoulders. Danny glowered at him, and shook it off, stepping forward to grin at Sam.

"You look great as always." He told her, giving her a quick peck on the forehead.

"You too, even if you look like you're channeling the Mummy, or the invisible man." Sam teased, giving him a quick peck on the lips, flashing a devilish grin. "Well, thanks for calling me though, Danny, my parents were driving me crazy." She said, rolling her eyes. "We have some stupid company party coming up, and of course, as usual, they're dragging me along. Guess who had to sit behind them as they debated endlessly over dresses, all of which I would never wear in my life?"

Danny winced, looking sympathetic. "Sounds tough. I know how you hate those parties. You want me to crash it and liven things up?" He asked her, and then, in a low voice, so that only Sam could hear, "...Both Phantom and Fenton options are available for your choice of escape, of course."

"Mm, I may take you up on that offer." Sam laughed a little. "But for now, I'm going to swim. Got to keep in shape, after all!" She grinned, giving his hand a squeeze, before she headed over towards the pool. "Come on Dani, I'll race you!"

"I'll beat you for sure this time, Sam!" Dani raced after her, white teeth flashing in a grin. Tucker chimed in, hurrying after the pair, tossing in a bet that the losers have to buy the winner a Nasty Burger.

"Well, I'm going to get a cool drink and do something about this all too pasty skin of mine. I've been spending way too much time inside, lately, I'm as pale as a sheet. I don't understand people whose whole lives are tanning, but I could _probably _afford a little bit more color." Jazz said, glancing over at Danny. "How about you? You thirsty?"

"Yeah, a little." Danny lied. Of course he wasn't thirsty, he was dead. "You buying?" He asked, watching Jazz carefully. He didn't spend a whole lot of time with Jazz in this form, either, for the same reasons that he didn't do it with Maddie. Both of them were very intelligent young (he winced when he realized he was grouping forty year old Maddie in the 'young' category) women, and that made him somewhat uncomfortable. A few wrong moves, and they might be on to his secret, putting his double life at risk.

And boy, did Danny ever know how getting your secret exposed could ruin everything.

"Of course. I've heard about your financial situation from mom." Jazz commented simply, raising her brows in a smooth motion. Danny couldn't help but wince, suddenly feeling strangely trapped, and wondered if she had come on this little trip just to get a chance to get him alone. "I think I can spare up enough cash to buy a friend a three dollar drink." She said with a small laugh.

"Uh, yeah, thanks." Danny said, frowning a little. There was silence as they waited at the drink counter, broken only by when it was time to order their drinks. Jazz found herself a lounging chair, one in a fairly secluded area, and invited Danny to sit with her. Apprehensively, as if looking for a way to escape, he glanced about him, then heaved a forced sigh, taking the chair next to her. Maybe she just wouldn't say anything?

After taking a sip of her drink, Jazz set it down on the table, and glanced over at him, giving him a small smile. "Now Danny," she began, and he flinched- so much for that idea. "...I know you don't really like the idea of talking with therapists..." she began.

Danny paled at that, an impressive feat for someone already so pale. "W-what gives you that impression? I don't recall ever mentioning anything to that effect."

"I can tell these things." Jazz told him simply, shrugging her shoulders. "I'm guessing you had a bad experience with one in the past- perhaps you ran into one who simply made everything worse?" She shook her head. "But, that's not what I'm going to ask you about. I mean, you can talk to me about it later if you feel like it, but that's not what I wanted to talk to you about."

"Okay." Danny gave her a confused look, not liking the direction that this conversation was going in. His earlier words to Tucker came back to him- he'd always sort of suspected Jazz would have a chat of this nature with him, he just didn't think it would happen _this _quickly. "Then what is it you want to talk about?"

"You're Phantom, aren't you?" Jazz asked directly, a knowing look in her eyes.

"W-what?" Danny stammered, taken aback. "W-what do you mean by that, Jazz?" He asked, rubbing the back of his neck. "I mean, Phantom's a ghost, so he's dead, and I'm ah... I'm not." He lied. "And there's also the fact that he's like a hundred years old, and I've got plenty of records that state I'm only eighteen. Don't you think that sounds a little crazy, Jazz?"

"You're best friends with Tucker, who people acknowledge as a technological prodigy. Electronic records are easily forged if you have the right knowledge." Jazz said simply. "That," she said, deftly grabbing Danny's wrist, easily sliding her fingers into place to take his pulse. "And you don't _actually _seem to be alive. No pulse, Danny?" She asked, inclining her brows.

Danny snatched his wrist away from her, looking off in another direction, trying to hide his panicked gaze. If his heart was in fact, still beating, it would be pounding out of his chest right now. His gaze shifted frantically, body tensed, as if he was looking for a chance, any chance to escape, now that someone who wasn't supposed to know knew his secret, every muscle in his body screamed out that there would be danger. For the first time in what must have been a hundred years, he briefly lost control of his powers, finding himself sinking through the beach chair he was sitting on.

"Whoa there!" Jazz said quickly, pulling him back up, and letting out a deep breath, grateful that nobody else had noticed. "Danny, calm down. It's okay, I'm not going to tell anyone about it, least of all my parents." She promised him, trying to get him to look at him. She had expected some kind of shock, but this was too much, she thought, her eyes narrowing. It was another piece of the puzzle that was Phantom, one that slowly fell into place with all of the rest.

"Danny, it's alright." Jazz reassured him. "I'm fine with this, I'm fine with what you are. I mean," she paused, frowning a little. "Actually I don't really know what you are, but I do know that you would never hurt anyone, least of all Dani or Sam." She told him, a smile on her face as he slowly seemed to calm down. "I'm sorry, I scared you, I shouldn't have done that, but I needed to know."

"No, you didn't, not really." Danny said, rubbing his forehead, coming back to himself. "Things would have been fine if you didn't know. I didn't plan on letting you know, Jazz. I would have told you something if I did." He said, through gritted teeth, a little angry now. "I like you Jazz, I do, and I trust you, but I don't trust you to keep your nose out of business that it doesn't belong in."

"Look, Danny." Jazz paused, then frowned. "Do you prefer Phantom, or Danny, by the way? I want to make sure I'm using the right name when we're alone."

"Danny." He said shortly. "It was the name I was born with, after all."

"Ah, so that _is _your real name. I thought it was unusual you would be so highly responsive to an alias." Jazz remarked. She sighed a little then, taking a good, long, look at Danny. "Look, Danny, I'm just going to be direct here. I know you've got a lot of unresolved issues. You don't have to be a psychologist in training to notice that. You're broken in a lot of places, and you don't want people to be able to tell that, so you cover it up with confidence and humor. But it's going to do you more harm than good in the long run, and while ghost psychology isn't really my speciality, your psyche seems to match up pretty well with the rest of us humans."

"I did use to be human." Danny reminded her, unable to meet her gaze, instead, staring down at his toes. "Look, Jazz, I know you mean well, but I don't want to talk about it- I don't think I need to, either. It's been a hundred years, and everyone that ever caused any problems in my life is dead, and they have been for a long time now."

"Problems don't just go away because the people that cause them are dead." Jazz said simply. "But alright, Danny. Just know that my offer still stands." She said, smiling at him a little. "Why don't you go on and head back over and hang out with Sam and everyone else?" She said. "I can imagine you don't want to stay here any longer."

Danny frowned, standing up without so much as a word to the red head. He paused for a moment, however, glancing back towards her when she spoke up again.

"And Danny?" Jazz said, smiling at him. "I'm not going to tell anyone. I think what you do is great, even if I don't fully understand what it is you are. And honestly, I don't really care all that much. I don't know the full extent of what the problems you're hiding are- but I do know _who _you are. And who you are is a good person." She admitted, smiling a little when his face brightened a bit from the praise. "Now go hang out with your girlfriend. It looks like she won their little race, after all. Probably wants someone to celebrate it with."

Jazz watched as Danny headed off to go hang out with his friends, picking up her drink and taking another sip of it. Truth be told, she was slightly curious as to the _what _and _how _of Phantom. She had heard from her parents that some ghosts could assume a more human form, which was what she assumed Phantom could do. But something about that struck her as strange, as there were things about Phantom that just didn't fit. For some reason, she had a feeling that the issue of _what _was much more complicated than just that.

It was true, however, that she understood the _who_ of Phantom, if not always the _why. _Phantom was a good person, Jazz didn't need to be well read on the latest psychology magazines to know that much. Phantom saved people, even if there was no reward in it for him, he protected the town. When there were no ghosts, he protected the townsfolk from accidents, and those that sought to do them harm. When the ghosts came, he protected them from the ghosts. He never really complained about it either, a few jokes here and there, but nothing that was really serious. He cared deeply for his friends, and Jazz had no doubt that his feelings for Sam were genuine, if not meant to last in the long run.

The _why _was a puzzle too, but Jazz had some ideas. She was sure that Danny had died during the Great Amity Park Fire, likely, there were burns of some kind that he was hiding underneath those bandages. But she felt that there was more that they hid, something that ran deeper, and was much more painful. It was something in the way he flinched if you grabbed him too suddenly, something in the way that he never showed his back to people he didn't trust- and those were few. He didn't seem to truth authority, or at the very least, didn't seem to think that they could solve his problems. He didn't like to talk about his past, and although that could be explained away as not wanting to give away the fact that he was Phantom, there was more to it than that.

And Jazz wanted to help him, she really did. Part of it, she admitted, was because she thought the idea of doing a psychological evaluation of a ghost was fascinating. But the other part was that when she saw Phantom, she saw someone who was in need of some much overdue help. It wasn't being dead that was Phantom's problem, no, he seemed to have gotten used to that. Phantom's problems came before that, from when he was alive. And although she had a vague idea of what they could be, she didn't want to leap to any conclusions.

Leaping to conclusions in this case, could be dangerous.

* * *

After that, Danny had avoided Jazz for the rest of the day, and although people noticed it, he avoided discussing the topic as well. It wasn't until later, in private with Sam, that he told her what had happened. Sam had reassured Danny that Jazz wasn't going to tell anyone, and in the end, he had to agree. Jazz wasn't the kind of person who would go around blabbing about other people's secrets. This was different than previous situations, it wasn't going to end up with him strapped to a table.

Danny had trusted Sam, Tucker, and Dani with his secret, after all, and things had turned out just fine. In truth, it had been the hardest thing for him to do, letting them each know in turn the truth- or parts of the truth, at any rate. Sam knew the most of it, of course, and she was the one that he had told the first, when he realized that he had feelings for her. It was unexpected- he'd had crushes before when he was alive, but it was nothing like this. Tucker had been told the secret as well, once Sam had hatched her crazy plan to allow them to spend time together like a normal couple, at least for awhile.

Dani more or less found out on her own, as prone to snooping as she was, but in the end, Danny was the one who had told her. He sort of regretted it now, what with the way she admired his powers so. He had been worried when he heard the Fentons mentioning that they were going to turn the ghost portal back on, so worried in fact, that he'd protested against it more violently than he should have. But of course, Dani had no way of knowing how he'd gotten his powers in the first place, and it wasn't like such an accident could happen twice in a row, right? Danny was probably just a fluke.

Now that the ghost portal was on, Danny was assured that there was no way that Dani could get ghost powers anyways. He wished she would understand that they weren't all they were cracked up to be, but he wasn't sure how to explain that to her without delving into dark arcs of the Fenton family history, things that were better left forgotten, unsaid.

They had ended up spending most of the afternoon at the water park, though eventually, they parted ways. Jazz agreed to drive everyone home herself, leaving Danny alone. In the end, he'd transformed back into Phantom, and had decided to go on ghost patrol. It had been a blessed afternoon, void of ghost attacks for a change, a much needed break. Ghost hunting now was easier than it had been a hundred years ago, of course. Phantom was stronger now, for one thing. He was already dead now, so it wasn't exactly like he needed to worry too much about his own well being. It was easier keeping up his double life now as well, seeing as he actually didn't have to care about his grades, all of that being just a farce, just an excuse to be able to spend 'normal' couple time with Sam, time he wouldn't be able to get if she were dating Phantom instead of Fenton.

Eventually, Phantom thought, Sam would move on. She didn't seem like the type to want to stay in Amity Park forever, and he didn't want to keep her there either. She would probably go on to do great things he figured, and he was fine with it, and fine with the idea that he would have to let her go someday. Perhaps this brief romance was the reward he had long since sought, a thank you from the cosmos for his brave actions, and an apology for the horrible things it had done to him.

It was nice to think that way, at least.

A wisp of blue mist escaped from Phantom's lips then, and he frowned, rolling his eyes. It looked like the _mostly _peaceful day was over, and it was back to ghosts. Searching for who it was tonight, Phantom spotted a rather unusual sight. The 'ectopuses' as Tucker had dubbed them had been strange enough, but these- these were what appeared to be green vultures wearing fezzes, three of them, in fact. What caught his attention more than that, however, was the fact that all three of them seemed to be making a beeline for Fenton Works, as if they had some sort of reason to be heading there. Perhaps they were heading for the portal on their own? Somehow, Phantom doubted that.

"You three seem to be in a hurry." Phantom remarked, having sped up to cut them off. He crossed his arms in front of his chest, glowering down at the three ghost birds. "And why's that?"

"Out of our way, youngling. We've got an important mission to accomplish." One of them spoke up, glowering at this sudden interruption.

"And what does your mission have to do with Fenton Works?" Phantom arched an eyebrow at being called a 'youngling' for a change (and really, _youngling_? Who even said that?). "Cause I hate to break it to you gents, but if I don't like the sound of it, I'm afraid I'm going to have to put an end to it."

"Of course you'll like it, you're a ghost, aren't you?" One of them asked sourly. "We are on a mission to track down and peck to death, this man here." It reached into it's feathers to pull out a small black and white photograph, and Phantom found Jack Fenton's face staring back at him from it.

"Right, so in other words, I don't like it." Phantom said, sounding cross. "In short, not a chance." He told them, ectoplasm flaring up in one hand, quickly shooting the bird that held the photograph, knocking it back. The other two glowered at him, eyes blazing red, as their talons extended, looking far more fearsome. They came at him at a quick speed, and Phantom dodged them, floating underneath them, grabbing one of them by the leg as he did so. He swung it down into the ground, and it made a nice impact with it.

The one he sent flying came back then, at rapid speed- these ghosts didn't seem very strong, but they were pretty fast when they wanted to be, Phantom thought. Raising an ecto shield, he blocked the sharp beak that was aimed straight for him, then shot off another ecto blast behind him, sensing the third ghost coming back. Shielding himself in a ball of ecto energy as the other two struck back, he closed his eyes, and then unleashed the ball's energy on them, blowing all three of them away.

They retreated quickly after that, and Phantom frowned, floating downwards to pick up the small photograph of Jack that they had dropped. Ghosts wanting to do in a ghost hunter wasn't that strange, but he found himself puzzled. From the sound of it, someone else had given the ghost vultures the job- and if they were really worried about ghost hunters in the area, why didn't they send them after Maddie, or even against himself? Jack wasn't exactly much of a threat, at least not when his family wasn't in danger.

"Weird." Phantom decided, tucking the photograph away for now. Maybe he should keep an eye on Fenton Works for tonight, he thought, and floated back upwards, glancing over towards the building. Somehow, Phantom got the feeling that this wouldn't be the end of things.

* * *

"So you came back to tell me that you traded a few blows with Phantom, and ran away scared?" Vlad Masters asked of his minions, his tone that of scorn. "There's three of you, and only one of him. Surely you could have thought of something to take him down."

"Easy for you to say, boss. Phantom's strong. We may be ghosts, but we still posses a strong survival instinct." One of the ghost vultures said. "If you're so interested in taking out Jack Fenton, why don't you do it yourself? It's not like you don't have the power to do so."

"Yes, that's true enough." Vlad Masters inclined his head, as black rings formed around his waist. The mayor of Amity Park was quickly replaced by a blue skinned ghost with black hair and red eyes, wearing a white cape and rather large fangs, that would invoke the image of a vampire to anyone who looked at him. "But you do know how I hate having to get my hands dirty." The man said dryly.

"And you did say that Phantom didn't seem pleased with the idea of you trying to off Jack Fenton?" Vlad Masters- or rather, Vlad Plasmius, asked.

"He sure did, boss." One of the vultures responded. "Started blasting away as soon as he heard about our plans."

"Hm, I see." Plasmius arched an eyebrow. "Curious. Well, Jack did once mention before that he was somewhat acquainted with the Phantom, though that was back in college." He laughed dryly then, shaking his head. "And to think that back then I didn't even believe in ghosts." He could have never expected that he would one day end up being half ghost himself. Really, he had only been involved in that _blasted _proto ghost portal project because of Maddie. He was amazed that Jack had been able to get the big one up running without anyone else being involved in an accident.

Still, Phantom protecting the bumbling ghost hunter struck him as strange. It was natural for ghosts and ghost hunters to be enemies, but apparently Phantom didn't seem to like the idea of Jack Fenton being harmed. Then again, Plasmius thought, Phantom had always been painfully a goody two shoes, even after all of the ghosts had been unsealed from Amity Park by the activation of the Fenton Ghost Portal. Always protecting the humans, and fighting against the ghosts, sending them back to the Ghost Zone where they had come from. It was honestly rather frustrating, Plasmius thought.

"Perhaps the lad just needs a bit of convincing." Plasmius mused, sparing a brief mental laugh at himself for calling a one hundred year old ghost a 'lad'. Still, the ghost looked far younger than Plasmius did, just a teenager, so it was hard to think of him any other way. Plasmius himself hadn't had much contact with the ghosts before, trying to keep a rather low profile in terms of ghostly activity- or rather, forced too. His powers had worked fine outside of Amity Park, but prior to the Fenton Ghost Portal being started up, for whatever reason, he couldn't get them to work at all while he was in Amity Park. It certainly put a damper in his grand plans of revenge against Jack Fenton. It was as if there were some kind of force preventing any other ghost than Phantom from existing in Amity Park during that time. He would have to figure out that mystery one day, he thought.

Speaking of mysteries, the white haired ghost boy was quite one himself. Sometimes, Plasmius felt as if the two of them had some kind of strange question, and were it not for the fact that he had been consistently spotted over the past one hundred years, he would have half thought he was a half ghost, like him. If he were, Plasmius knew who the most likely candidate would be, that strange Daniel Fenton boy that sometimes hung around Maddie's daughters.

Plasmius was more than a little surprised to have learned that Daniel and the Fentons didn't share a relation between them. It wasn't just the last name alone that did it, but rather, his uncanny resemblance to their youngest daughter, Danielle. He had been sure that Daniel must have at least been a cousin of some kind, but that turned out not to be the case at all. Complete strangers, was all they were, as it had turned out. Daniel surely was a puzzle- he appeared all but out of the blue one day. Plasmius hadn't had many chances to speak with the young man, but he got the distinct feeling that Daniel didn't like him.

Rather, he was quite sure that Daniel was extremely suspicious of him. It wasn't the first time that Plasmius had earned someone's doubt, but this instant level of distrust struck him as odd. Well, no mind, he supposed, Phantom and Daniel were likely unrelated- after all, half ghosts aged just as humans did, Plasmius knew this from experience. It was unlikely, anyways, that there would be another such as himself. His accident with the proto portal had been just a fluke, hardly the sort of thing that could be repeated.

"And how do you plan on convincing Phantom, boss?" One of the vultures asked, breaking Plasmius out of his thoughts. "He's a bit hard to get a hole of."

"Ah yes, indeed, but there are ways to get to him." Plasmius said, a devilish grin on his face. "I do believe that he is friends," he laughed for a moment, the idea of a ghost being friends with a human was that, laughable, "...with that Samantha Manson girl. And if I recall correctly, she is due at a party I am throwing in the honor of Manson Inc in two day's time. If she's used as bait, I'm sure that Phantom will come to us willingly. Meanwhile, you three can use the time to take out Jack Fenton."

"And if Phantom doesn't agree to join you?" One asked.

"Well then," Plasmius flashed another devilish grin. "Unlike the three of you, I'm quite confident in my own powers. I'll see to it that our unwanted goody two shoes of a Phantom is... dealt with."


	7. Your Tragedy is Nothing

Author's Note: Chapter Seven appears! Honestly though this doesn't seem to be one of my more popular stories, I just sort of really like it because it's different and it really lets me mix up the characters a bit. And that's always fun! As always, Danny Phantom doesn't belong to me. This will also not mark the last time that we will see Vlad folks, so Vlad fans, don't worry. xD All questions, will of course, be answered in time, though folks are free to speculate as they like. I enjoy speculation. xD

* * *

The Once and Future Phantom

Chapter Seven: Your Tragedy is Nothing

"Oh come on Sam, don't get so down. You look _great_. And I thought you liked purple?" Phantom said, a playful grin on his face as he watched his disgruntled girlfriend try on the dress that her parents had bought for her for the party the mayor was throwing for Manson Inc and it's employees that night.

"I like _darker _shades of purple." Sam said, pulling at the fabric of the dress, and giving it a look as if it were responsible for all the suffering in the universe. "This- this is _lavender_, Danny. I am not a lavender person."

"Well I think you look cute." Phantom told her, grinning a little as she flushed a bit, turning her head away. "At least it doesn't have floral print this time. And it doesn't look like it's straight from the 1950s! That's always a plus, right?" He asked her, standing up and putting his hands on her shoulders.

"I suppose." Sam frowned, clearly still not happy. "You don't think there's still time to modify it a little?" She asked him, a mischievous smirk on her face.

"The last time you did a last minute modification of one of the dresses your parents bought for a formal party, your mother forced you to wear one of hers instead." Phantom pointed out, laughing when Sam cringed at the memory. "It probably wouldn't be wise, is all I'm saying. Besides, it's not like you'll be spending a lot of time at the party, right? I'll come swooping in to save you from boredom and awkward people twice your age trying to ask you to dance."

"You'd better." Sam said, glancing back at him, before she looked back at her dress, giving it another dirty look. "I hate being dragged to these things." She said.

"You could just skip it and run off with me for the day right now." Phantom suggested, giving her a sly grin.

"As tempting as that is, I'd like to avoid getting grounded twice in one month." Sam told him, leaning forward a bit to give him a quick kiss on the lips. "But thanks for the offer, Danny. Now, you'd better get out of here. My parents are probably going to be coming to check if I've tried on the dress yet soon, and I'm pretty sure they would flip their lids if they caught you in here. I'm sort of amazed that they haven't installed a ghost shield on the house already."

Phantom laughed at that, floating upwards a bit. "True enough, but don't go giving them any ideas."

"Don't worry, I don't plan on it." Sam told him, grinning a little. "Get on out of here, Danny. I'm sure you've got some work you could be doing."

"Ugh, don't remind me." Phantom rolled his eyes. "I still haven't even figured out why those ghosts were after Jack the other day. There haven't been any others since then, but I'm still more than a little worried about it. I mean, he's Dani and Jazz's father, right? I'd hate to see what would happen to them if something did happen to him." He told her. "I hope there won't be anything else, but until I see those ghost vultures put away for good, I'm going to keep my guard up."

"Have you told Mr. Fenton that someone was after him?" Sam asked.

"No, no yet. If it gets serious, I plan to though." Phantom said. "He does have the right to know that someone is plotting to take his life, after all."

"Well, be careful, Danny." Sam told him, frowning a little. "Ghost or not, there are still things that can hurt you, right? Don't take any unneeded risks." She warned him.

"I'll keep it in mind, Sam." Phantom grinned at her. "Well, I'll see you later this evening, then. Until then, have fun with your parents!" He told her, lightly teasing. He laughed a little as she shot him a dirty look, and turned invisible, passing through one of her bedroom walls just as there was a knock on her door. He didn't stay to see her mother's reaction to Sam wearing the dress she had chosen, but from the girlish squeal of delight she made, Phantom could tell that Pamela Manson was rather pleased.

It was true that the attempted attack on Jack Fenton two nights ago still troubled Phantom. The thought that there was someone out there that wanted to do away with someone he knew, even if he wasn't someone close to him, riled him up. The fact that said person was also technically a member of his own family did so even more. And Phantom didn't think the ghost vultures were the ones after his life, no, someone else had sent them. It didn't seem like their bone to pick with the ghost hunter was personal, at any rate.

And Phantom was going to get to the bottom of it. The fact that it had been silent for the past two days was actually a bit worrisome, and he didn't really like it. Perhaps whoever had sent the ghost vultures was now planning something else? Something bigger, he thought grimly. He would have to keep his guard up. It was also why he'd told Dani to put the ghost shield up around Fenton Works yesterday. He couldn't be there all the time, there were still other ghosts in the city causing havoc, but the ghost shield would prevent any other unwanted attempts on Jack Fenton's life, so long as he stayed inside Fenton Works.

And surely, nobody would try to kill him out in the open, during the day, right?

Phantom wasn't sure who it was that was gunning for Jack. It could have been a ghost, after all the man _was _a ghost hunter. It could have been a human, even, his experiences with a certain gothic ringmaster named Freakshow when he was still alive had surely shown Phantom that there were some humans capable of controlling ghosts. He shivered, recalling the rather unpleasant sensation of having his own mind and free will all but ripped from him, thoughts not his own implanted in his head, and wondered what would have happened to him if he hadn't managed to break free.

Well, Amity Park wouldn't have burned to the ground, at any rate.

"Right okay, unpleasant turn of thoughts there." Phantom said to himself, shaking his head. "Concentrate, Phantom, you've got a job to do. Dwelling on the past won't get you anywhere. It's already happened, and you can't change it."

* * *

One person that Phantom had been trying to avoid lately was Jazz Fenton. Ever since she had learned the truth- or part of the truth, at least, about him, she had seemed to desire more. It was exactly what Phantom had suspected she would do, and was also exactly why he hadn't told her anything in the first place. At the very least, she had kept the secret to herself, and hadn't told a soul. Most importantly, she hadn't told her parents. She thought maybe it was best if they didn't know that Phantom could turn himself into a spitting image of a normal human.

Well, _almost _normal, when you got past the bandages and the dead eye. Actually, Jazz was wondering how nobody noticed that- that both Phantom and Danny had the same exact scar over the same exact eye. She wondered if he could see with it better in ghost form, because she knew he couldn't see a damn thing with it in 'human' form.

That said, she had to put all of those thoughts aside for today. Jazz had been tasked by her mother to try and clean out the attic, and look for things they could take to a community yard sale that was coming up in a few days. The attic hadn't been cleaned in years, Jazz thought, at least, she could never remember it being cleaned within her lifetime. Going up there only confirmed this suspicion- in fact, she half thought the attic had lain untouched since her great grandmother's time. Oh sure, they tossed stuff up there on occasion, but for the most part, they didn't touch the stuff that was already there.

"At least the lights are still working." Jazz commented as she switched them on. "This is not a one person job, though." She frowned, setting aside the flashlight she had brought up with her. She paused then, picking it back up, on the off chance that the lights flickered back off sometime while she was up here. She didn't exactly like the idea of being stranded in a dark attic. She'd probably break her neck or something trying to get out, and what a way _that _would be to go.

"Well, I thought it before, but this confirms it. The Fentons are officially a family of pack rats." Jazz mused, looking at the vast amounts of things they had acquired in the attic. It was more than a little intimidating, to be honest. Even she had some pack rat tendencies, and still had most of her old notes from both high school and middle school lying in a box underneath her bed on the off chance that she would suddenly need them. She was one of the few people who still used pen and paper to write notes, simply liking the feel of it, even if everyone else thought her odd for it.

Sometimes, Jazz thought, she felt as if she could understand Phantom's thoughts about technology.

"Well, better get started. Maybe I should start my excavation somewhere in the back." She mused, carefully navigating her way through the attic until she reached an area that looked promising, things looking of a fitting age to find some interesting things in. Cracking her knuckles, she grabbed her scissors and opened up the first box. Looking through the contents, she seemed mildly pleased, picking up a small box which contained a rather nice looking set of silverware, perhaps a wedding gift at some point. "Not bad. Finding nice things is going to be easier than I thought!" She said, setting the box aside in a clear area.

"Boy am I glad I'm not allergic to dust though." Jazz commented, brushing some off the top of another box before she opened it up, more disappointed this time. Lots of papers, but nothing that looked like they could sell. She flipped through them a little, out of mild curiosity, and found that they belonged to her great-great grandparents, Grace and Richard Fenton, the ones who had built Fenton Works. Family records, it looked like, and nothing too terribly interesting. She recalled that they had died in the Great Amity Park Fire, leaving behind their fourteen year old daughter, Miranda.

Jazz paused a little, fingers hovering above one record. She frowned deeply, confused by it for a moment, without fully understanding why. Carefully, she set aside the folder and set the papers that had been on top of it on one side, so as not to break any order they might have been sorted in. The record in question was a health record of some kind for Miranda, the text faded and yellow so that she couldn't quite read it clearly. What caught her attention were the blanked out spaces, as if someone had taken white out to them, erasing what had been there before.

That was strange, she thought, and she flipped through the rest of the records. Here and there, there were blank spaces. Did her great-great grandparents have something to hide, she wondered, the task her mother had given her momentarily forgotten. After finding no more answers in the rest of the files, only more seemingly random blank spaces, Jazz frowned, starting to seal up the box. She paused however, and instead, placed the records to one side, planning on studying them in more detail later.

After uncovering a few more things they could sell, a nice tea set and an assortment of stuffed animals in remarkable condition for their age, Jazz stumbled across something that created more questions again. It was labeled 'Fenton Family Photos', and although the pages were yellowed with age, she could recognize the faces of Grace, Richard, and Miranda, having seen them before from the photos kept on the mantelpiece downstairs. But these photos were different, ones she hadn't seen before.

Cut off in odd places, someone had taken scissors to them, in what at first appeared to be a random manner. Some slots that should have held photos appeared to be empty instead, nothing there but stray pieces of tape. It was when Jazz saw the stray hand on Miranda's shoulder, that belonged to someone that wasn't there, that she realized that the photos had been cut so that they excluded a person.

Dropping the photo album, she scrambled for the records again, digging through them until she pulled out a health record for Grace Fenton. Eyes scanning through it, she found that one of the blanked out areas was in an area that concerned her children. The 'number of children' was blanked out, but all of Miranda's information was still there.

But there was another section that had been blanked out entirely.

The realization hit Jazz like hard, knocking the metaphorical wind right out of her.

Her great-great grandparents, who had been killed in the Great Amity Park fire, had another child.

A child who _somebody _wanted the existence of to be hidden.

But _why?_

Why would someone want to hide the fact that she had a great grand-uncle? Why did Miranda never say anything about having a brother to her father? What possible reason could a family have for denying the existence of one of it's own members?

Wheels turned in her head, all leading back to one face- Phantom's. Or rather, that of his human alias, Danny Fenton. Jazz had at first thought he has just adopted their last name because he couldn't think of anything else, but what if it was something else? What if his last name was Fenton because he _was _a Fenton? That is, he was a member of their family, or had been, until he had been erased from history. It made far too much sense for her to ignore it, and now that the idea was in her head, it wouldn't go away.

_But why?_

Knowing the _who _did not answer the _why_, and with every second, that question burned stronger inside of her. Determined to get to the bottom of this, Jazz grabbed a box filled with old clothes and dumped it out, stuffing inside the records and the photo album. She would bring it down with her to look through later in her room. In the meantime, she would look for more evidence in these boxes. She had plenty of time, after all.

Jazz hated jumping to conclusions, but she couldn't help but think that she had discovered something that would forever shake her entire world.

If only because this could mean that one of her close friends was actually dating her _great grand-uncle.  
_

* * *

Mr. Lancer was in his office during the lunch break that Tuesday afternoon, looking over his attendance records. "Make that two days in a row Mr. Fenton decides to not show up at all, it seems." The balding man frowned deeply. For once, Sam Manson had an excused absence, pulled out of school by her parents in order to prepare for some kind of fancy party that was being thrown in Manson Inc's honor that evening. Mr. Lancer could only imagine how much Miss Manson was dreading the party, he didn't think she would be quite comfortable at those sorts of things. Daniel Fenton, however, didn't have an excuse, and he knew better at this point to try and get information out of Sam.

It was strange though, that he had started skipping recently without the goth girl. Usually, the two of them did everything together, including skipping class. Lately however, the one who was doing the skipping was usually just Danny.

Mr. Lancer set the records aside as he heard a knock on his door, smiling as he had a feeling who it would be. "Please come in, it's open." He said, standing up to greet the woman who had just entered his office. Extending a hand, she took it, giving it a firm shake- she had rather cold hands, Mr. Lancer couldn't help but notice.

After the ghosts started to show up in Amity Park, some people had thrown up their hands and moved out of town, too scared to stay. Among those had been Casper High's therapist, and Mr. Lancer had gone through hell and high water to find another one on such short notice. In the meantime, he had Jasmine Fenton filling in as a temporary student therapist, but he knew that wouldn't last forever, they needed a professional. He had struck gold when he had found her, a young, bright woman with a rather shining record that any school would have died to have.

"Thank you for having me, Mr. Lancer." She told him, her lips twisting into a smile. "It's a shame to hear about the last therapist. Well," She assured him. "I'm not afraid of any ghosts, so you don't have to worry about me running out on you all like that. Not very professional of him, to be honest."

"Yes, well, I can't entirely blame him." Mr. Lancer said, taking a seat at his desk, and motioning for the woman to do the same. "The ghosts have been rather frightening at times, I'm still not quite used to them myself, to be honest." He told her. "But it also means that we may have all the more need for a new therapist at Casper High, enough of our students have already had encounters with ghosts already. Well, ghosts besides Phantom of course, but he's of no real concern to our student's mental health."

_Well, aside from Miss Sanchez. _Mr. Lancer thought dryly. The girl's Phantom fixation had been growing old even before the rest of the ghosts had arrived.

"Oh of course." The woman nodded sagely, adjusting her dark sunglasses. Mr. Lancer had heard she had an eye condition of some sort that required her to wear them, well, it was of no real concern. "I understand that completely, Mr. Lancer. My assistant and I will do everything we can in order to assure the student body of Casper High is cheery and full of pep!" She said, pumping a fist to punctuate her sentence.

"I like your motivation, Miss Spectra." Mr. Lancer smiled at her. "I'm sure you've already been told where your new office will be?" He asked her. "We'll announce your arrival at the beginning of school tomorrow. We've had a student interested in the field of psychology filling in during the meantime, but as competent as Jasmine Fenton seems to be, she's no replacement for a real, licensed therapist."

"Fenton, huh?" Penelope Spectra asked, an unreadable expression briefly crossing her face. "The daughter of the two ghost hunters in this town, right?" She asked him.

"Why yes, in fact. Are you familiar with them?" Mr. Lancer asked her.

"No, but it's not the first time I've known a family with the last name of Fenton." Spectra told him. "Well, I'm sure she'll be glad to be able to get back to her studies without having to worry about the rest of the student body. I look forward to working here, Mr. Lancer, Casper High seems to be a great working environment."

"Why, thank you, Miss Spectra, we do everything we can to keep it that way." Mr. Lancer told her, standing up as the lunch bell rang. "Well, that's my cue to return to my students. Will you be able to find your new office just fine?"

"Oh yes." Spectra told him, standing up. "I'd like to walk myself around the school as well, if that's not a problem. Get a feel for the layout and everything." She told him. "I wouldn't want to keep you from your students, Mr. Lancer. You must be one of their favorite teachers, I can tell."

"Well," Mr. Lancer had to cough, in an attempt to cover up the faint blush that rose to his cheeks from the unexpected praise. "I would like to think so."

"I'm sure it's true." Spectra said smoothly, exchanging goodbyes with him, waiting to roll her eyes until after he was out of her sight. She watched as the students of Casper High emerged from the lunch room, heading towards their respective classes, smiling a little. Yes, this would be a perfect school to take up residence in. It hadn't been the first time she had worked at Casper High, but that was before the school had burned to the ground and had been rebuilt.

And just as it had been, it was still a delicious buffet of suffering and misery, courtesy of it's students. Oh, they might know that yet, but Spectra could see them here and there, the starts of fault lines, where she would have to push to make the students break. Of course, back then, it had just been for fun, but now, she had all the more reason to carry out what was one of her favorite hobbies.

Calling it a buffet, after all, wasn't exactly a metaphor for her.

* * *

Sam tugged at her dress in frustration for what must have been the fifth time that evening, the damn thing irritating her every time she looked down at it. She was eighteen, how was it that she was still stuck playing dress up doll for her mother? Hadn't she learned anything by now, that Sam simply wasn't interested in these sorts of clothes? No, if there was one thing Sam knew about her mother, it was the fact that she blamed anything Sam didn't like that she did on outside forces, usually on Phantom, and recently, Danny, unwitting to the fact that they were the same person.

And her mother had been so excited when she learned that Sam had gotten a boyfriend that wasn't Phantom, Sam recalled dryly, chuckling a little underneath her breath. Apparently her mother had always been worried that her precious little baby girl would be tricked into dating that awful Phantom ghost, and had been thrilled to learn that Sam had gotten herself a human boyfriend. She had been less thrilled when she had actually met Danny, of course, and had tried to set her up on dates with boys she had described as 'perfectly nice' since then, to no avail.

Sam could only imagine what her mother would think if she knew that Phantom and Danny were one and the same. She would probably flip her gourd.

The party itself was mostly the same, blurring together with hundreds of other parties she's been forced to attend since childhood into it. Paulina Sanchez was there of course, although her satellite, Star seemed to be absent for once. They were normally attached to the hip like glue, so Sam found herself mild curious as to where the blond girl was. Vlad Masters was there, no real shock, seeing that he was the one hosting the party- it was inside of his mansion, after all.

And it was as dull as hell.

Sam could sort of understand why Danny didn't seem to like the mayor now, when he had come up to greet her and her parents, he had given her this chilling look when she thought she wasn't looking. She had spent most of the party equally avoiding him, Paulina, and her parents. At least the food at this thing was good, she thought, finding plenty of things for her to eat for a change. She munched a little on a candied fig, watching the people on the dance floor. It was ballroom dancing, mostly, and Sam had been asked to dance more than a few times. She'd turned them all down of course, quickly stating that she already had a boyfriend and wasn't interested.

When was Danny going to come and get her anyways, she wondered. Had something happened with the Fentons? She heaved a sigh, then had to bite back a laugh as she watched a mismatched pair on the dance floor trip and fall over. She found herself wondering if she should try and teach Danny to dance sometime in the future, laughing to herself a little as she imagined him struggling just as the sheepish boy on the dance floor was in front of his more experienced counterpart.

He might know how to dance though, Danny could surprise her sometimes.

"Ah, Miss Samantha." Vlad's velvety smooth voice caught her ears, and she twitched, having been so caught up in the dancers that she hadn't noticed him coming. "I'm glad to see you are enjoying the food. I had heard you were vegetarian, so I made sure that the chefs prepared some options for someone of your tastes."

Ugh, there it was, that chilling fake smile, she thought, looking over at Vlad. She recognized it from seeing it countless times growing up, both around her and her parents. There were all sorts of fake, manipulative people lying in wait when you were rich, she'd found. She had gotten fairly good at picking them out from the honest people, and had no little amount of hate for them. The fact that the mayor of her town sported one so easily was a bit chilling really, the worst kind of politician. "I don't suppose you're going to ask me to dance too?" She asked dryly, unable to muster up any hint of respect for the man.

After all, if Danny didn't like her, she doubted that she would.

Vlad merely raised an eyebrow, his mask unbroken otherwise. Oh, she was a feisty one, wasn't she? He thought. An outsider, just like her boyfriend, no wonder Phantom was taken to her, and she in turn had been taken to Phantom. He did think a ghost being friends with a human girl was rather strange, but Phantom was really very strange for a ghost. "Oh no, of course not. Pardon me, my dear, but you are much too young for me. I've my heart set on someone else as well, I'm afraid."

"Hm. Well then, what is it that you want, Mr. Masters?" Sam asked him, setting aside the plate she was using, and picking up a napkin to wipe her hands with. "If you're just here to ask about how I'm enjoying the food, then yes, it's all fairly good. I thank you for keeping my tastes in mind." She said, trying to sound at least a little polite, and failing. As much as she hated to admit it, this was probably the most consideration she had ever gotten at one of these fancy things.

"Yes well, to be perfectly honest." Vlad said. "I've been hearing that you are rather close friends with that ghost boy, Phantom, I believe they call him. As you know, I'm the mayor of Amity Park, and as the mayor, I have been called to make a decision on the defenses that we should take as a city against ghost attacks. There are many very valuable companies and businesses here that we would hate to lose because of ghostly mayhem."

"And?" Sam asked, arching an eyebrow. "What does any of that have to do with me?" She asked him.

"Yes, as a friend of Phantom's I wanted to hear your honest impression of him. I need to know if he can be trusted or not." Vlad told her, speaking rather plainly. Sam still eyed him with suspicion, however, sensing something more underneath this. "If you would prefer to talk about such a sensitive subject in private, then we can talk in one of the rooms adjacent to my ballroom, if you like."

Sam eyed him skeptically, though she had no reason to believe that even the mayor would try something on her in the middle of a party thrown in her parent's honor. "I suppose I could." She said after a moment. "Although I am sort of waiting to meet someone."

"Not a problem, it will only take a few minutes." Vlad said. "Were you waiting for your boyfriend? I didn't invite him, but it is a party for your family's company, so I suppose he's more than welcome to show up as long as he cleans up a bit. I'm afraid he always seems to be... rather scruffy looking, if you'll pardon me."

"Danny doesn't think he needs to adjust his appearance to met the expectations of people around him." Sam smoothly observed, following behind Vlad as he lead her to a room off of the ballroom. "I make no apologies for him, because none need to be made."

"Yes of course, it was just a harmless observation." Vlad said, not enjoying how this eighteen year old girl was talking back to him. Who exactly did she think she was? If Vlad didn't need her as a hostage against Phantom, he could destroy her where she stood, if he so liked. Instead, he offered her some juice that he had set aside in the meeting room. "Care for a glass? You're looking a bit parched. No worries, it's nothing more than apple juice." He assured her.

"I am a bit thirsty." Sam admitted, taking the cup from them, and watched him as he poured one for himself. She took a light sip from the cup. "What was it that you wanted to know about Phantom, Mr. Masters? Because what I can tell you is that you should feel safe that he will protect Amity Park from ghosts. I've seen him in action, after all, I haven't met a ghost as of yet that can match him."

"Have you now?" Vlad asked her, not drinking from his own glass quite yet. "And how strong would you say he is?"

"Strong enough." Sam answered diplomatically. "He's not a threat to the people of Amity Park, if that's what you're trying to ask." She said, taking another sip.

"How can you be so sure?" Vlad inquired of her. "He may be keeping things from you."

"Oh, he is." Sam admitted easily. "But he also doesn't lie about them, not to me." She told him. "He doesn't talk about thing sure enough, but he doesn't try to hide behind a mask of lies. Unlike some people that I could name. And that's why I trust him." She said cooly, before taking another sip of her juice.

"Ah, I see." Vlad said, raising his brows. A look of mock concern appeared on his face as Sam swayed lightly on her feet, the high heels her mother had forced her to wear clicking unstably against the bare floor. "Are you alright, Samantha?" He asked, setting down his glass, not a drop of it touched. "You look a bit feverish." He told her.

Sam felt the exhaustion come across her like a rush. She stumbled on her feet, her eyes drooping, glass lowering in her hand. She could barely hear what Vlad was saying anymore, but her mind was still working away just fine, as she turned her gaze to Vlad's own glass of juice, realizing that he hadn't touched a drop of it, much as he had gone through a show of pouring one for himself.

And somewhere, from the recesses of her mind, just before she was about to lose consciousness, three vague memories appeared.

_"I just thought I would try fixing it for them, maybe it would make them happy for once. I went inside of it and accidentally touched the on button that was inside of it for some reason, and then __**zap**__. Instant half ghost."_

_"According to mom, he had to finish college in the hospital because of some kind of accident with an experimental ghost portal my dad was working on, based off the broken one down in the lab. Apparently, he was pretty bitter about it."_

_"I don't know who exactly is after Jack, but I have a sneaking suspicion that whoever sent them is human. A ghost would just go directly after him without bothering with ghosts."_

_Ah._ She found herself thinking as she dropped her glass, her body dropping towards the floor as whatever had been in it took it's effect on her. _So that's it._

* * *

Phantom didn't exactly like the looks of this. He was floating outside of the back of Vlad Master's mansion, expecting to be able to fly inside of it, and scoop Sam up before anyone noticed him. However, instead of being to fly right past the gates, he found himself repelled, forced away by what appeared to be some kind of invisible ghost shield. He had to admit, he didn't exactly expect Vlad to have a ghost shield installed on his mansion. It made sense when he thought about it, the mayor sounded like he would have liked to be protected in the event of a ghost attack, and what better way was there to do that than a ghost shield?

What struck Danny as strange was that it wasn't the same type that Jack and Maddie used, and as far as he was aware, that was also the _only _type. Dani and Jazz had never even mentioned that their parents had installed on the mayor's mansion. So Vlad Masters had a ghost shield, gotten from some place else other than the Fentons.

And Sam was inside of there.

"Still, might not be anything to worry about." Phantom thought, casting an eye around for any stray eyes or cameras. Finding none, he switched back over to Danny Fenton, and let himself fall to the ground, landing neatly on his feet. Truth be told, he hadn't tested a ghost shield in this body before, had no cause or reason to, because there hadn't been cause nor reason to have a ghost shield at all before two weeks ago. Jack and Maddie had been scrambling to make them for the various important tech companies that had their headquarters in Amity Park.

Danny hesitated at first, placing his hand in front of him, and trying to stick it through the shield. When it gave way with just a little bit of resistance, he grinned, walking through the shield with ease. It tingled a little, but didn't outright reject him, clearly recognizing the presence of something dead, but not something that was a ghost. "Okay, not anti-zombie shields, good to know." He joked, switching to Phantom once again after he got inside, ducking behind a bush to do so.

Turning invisible, Phantom flew into the Master's mansion, letting himself be guided by the sound of music. The party appeared to be in full swing, and although he looked for her, Danny couldn't find Sam anywhere. Frowning deeply, he did, however, spot Paulina, and rolled his eyes, considering going down to ask her if she had seen Sam anywhere. She knew the two girls weren't on good terms, but if it was a question from him, Phantom imagined that she would be all too happy to answer it.

That idea was cut short by a wisp of blue mist escaping from his lips, and Phantom's eyebrows furrowed. There was a ghost in here? That had gotten past a ghost shield? The only kinds of ghosts he knew that could do that were half ghosts and one ghost that he had met back in the Amity Park of old named Wulf. He doubted Wulf would have any reason to be here, and there couldn't have been any other half ghosts hanging around, so the fact that there was a ghost within these halls truly puzzled him. And worried him, especially when put together with the fact that he wasn't able to find Sam still.

Trusting to his instincts, he followed the cold chill in the air to find the ghost, and hoped that he wouldn't find Sam with it. As he flew deeper into the mansion, he found himself being brought downwards by his senses, and he phased through the floor into a hidden lab in the basement. Phantom's eyes narrowed as he glanced about, spotting copies of some of the Fenton's equipment here and there. What really caused him to freeze, however, was the replica of the Fenton Ghost Portal that was attached to the wall, very much active.

And then of course, there was the fact that there was a very unconscious Sam tied up to a chair in the corner, her mouth bound and gagged, wrists and ankles cuffed. Heedless of his surroundings, Phantom flew down to her, eyes wide. He quickly united the unconscious girl from the chair, and removed her gag, but when he went for the cuffs, he found that they shocked him, forcing him to remove his hands.

Swearing underneath his breath, Phantom slapped Sam on the side of her face lightly. "Sam, Sam, wake up." He hissed, glancing around the lab, still finding no one else there, and sensing no one. She groaned a little, but didn't come to. Chewing on his lip, Phantom once more let the rings of light appear around his waist, turning him back into human form. He tried her restraints again, and although they buzzed against his skin, a more unpleasant feeling than the ghost shield, he was able to grasp them long enough to break them off of her.

"Sam, come on, wake _up_." Danny hissed underneath his breath, scooping the girl in his arms. She was breathing fine, that was good at least, but she had clearly been given something. And what was this place anyways? Why would Vlad Masters have all of this stuff hidden away underneath his mansion? And why on earth, of all things, would he have Sam tied up in his basement.

Suddenly, something in Danny's mind clicked. If Vlad Masters had all of this ghost stuff, and his very own _ghost portal_, then couldn't he, in theory, have contact with ghosts? And given the way that he looked at Jack, and then looked at Maddie in turn, and their history together... If he wasn't holding Sam, Danny would have smacked himself. Here was someone who had a grudge against Jack Fenton staring at him straight in the face, and it hadn't so much as even popped into his head that Vlad Masters might be the person who sent out the ghost vultures.

Phantom was trying to stop them from killing Jack. They would have reported this back to their master. It wasn't exactly uncommon knowledge that Phantom and Sam Manson were friends. Of course someone willing to commit murder over a twenty year old grudge would be willing to drug and kidnap someone, possibly to hold them as a hostage against him.

"If I weren't a C student, I would have thought of that two days ago." Danny groaned. Apparently, he really had made no mental headway since he was eighteen.

"Well now," a voice spoke from nowhere, and Danny gasped, his ghost sense going off once more. His body visibly tensed, clutching Sam closer to him. "I expected that young Samantha's boyfriend would be coming to get her, like she said he would, but I'm impressed that you managed to get this far." The ghost said, materializing. It wasn't one that Danny had seen before, a new ghost, he thought. There was something strangely outputting about this one, however.

At least he hadn't seen him transform into Danny Fenton from Phantom, a blessed mercy. Normally, Danny didn't care about ghosts knowing, but this one felt a bit different.

"Although," Plasmius mused, floating down to land in front of the boy, quirking an eyebrow in amusement at how tensed Danny's body was, ready to strike at any moment. "...I suppose I should expect that someone from trash of a town like Waverly Hills. Still, color me impressed that a student of your grades could even find this lab. Not even the owner of this mansion knows it's here."

"Oh please." Danny said, his expression blank. "The owner of this mansion _built _this lab. That's how he got in touch with ghosts like you." He said quickly.

"And what would give you that impression?" Plasmius inquired. So the boy knew a bit more than he let on. Well, it was likely that Phantom had told him about the attempt on Jack's life, and he had managed to put two and two together. Not bad, for someone with his grades indeed. Plasmius had in fact, just barely missed the two times that Danny had switched back and forth between his forms, having left the mansion briefly to allow his ghost minions out of the ghost shield, to go after Jack Fenton. He had then returned here to find the raven haired boy inside of his secret lab, untying Samantha Manson. The two of them had just barely missed each other both times.

And breaking her bonds with his bare hands, Plasmius couldn't help but note.

"Because I know Vlad Masters has a grudge against Jack Fenton for causing an accident that sent him to the hospital." Danny said. He didn't know the details, exactly, just that Vlad had spent the next couple of years unable to leave his hospital room and that Jack felt awful about it. "Also because I have a hunch he wants to tap Maddie's ass."

"Not familiar with that expression." Plasmius said, though he was impressed that this scruffy looking boy had been able to piece things together. "But I'm afraid there's something you've overlooked." He said smoothly, raising his hands so that pink ectoplasmic fire flickered up around them. "And that it's that I can't allow you to leave here."

"Oh, you can try." Danny smirked, not appearing to show much fear from this display.

"I don't exactly think you understand what it is you're getting into, boy." Plasmius said lowly. He wasn't afraid at all? Did growing up in a crime infested town give you nerves of steel, or something? He wasn't even _flinching._ "I'm a ghost, in case you haven't noticed. And not a very nice one, either."

"Most aren't." Danny said coolly, carefully setting Sam back down in the chair. She groaned a little, her eyes briefly fluttering open. She smiled weakly up at Danny, before her gaze slid back towards Plasmius. Although unconsciousness threatened to come over her once more, she forced herself to stay awake for a few moments more, because she had something important to tell him.

"Danny..." Sam croaked out, eyes starting to flutter shut. "Vlad's half-ghost."

Of the two people in the room aside from her, the one who was shocked by this the most, was perhaps, Plasmius himself. How on Earth did Samantha Manson, of all people, even know that there was such a thing as a half-ghost? As far as he had been aware, he was the _only _one. How had she managed to figure out something like that, he was certain that she was out cold before he had transformed- and even if she had managed to see that, how could she have possibly jumped to that conclusion? Unless-

Unless he wasn't alone.

"Sam! Sam!" Danny shook her shoulders, but it was no good, she'd slipped back into sleep again, the sleeping drug too strong. What she told him shocked him, of course, but suddenly, all the pieces clicked into place in front of him. Most shocking perhaps, was the fact that he wasn't alone in the world, or well, given what he was since the fire, he was _now_. But his accident hadn't been a fluke, it was something that could be repeated. He stood up slowly, turning to face Plasmius, and recovering from his shock, he smirked a little.

"Is that so?" Danny asked. "How about that? The great Vlad Masters is half ghost." He said cooly. "I bet Maddie would _love _hearing about that."

"You say that like you don't have something to hide yourself." Plasmius observed, piecing things together on his end. There was still one thing that didn't make sense, though, and that was the fact that from his perception, Danny must have not aged since becoming half-ghost, if he was indeed the one hundred year old Phantom. The thought that his 'human' form was just as dead as his ghost form did not strike the man.

"True enough." Danny admitted, shrugging his shoulders, letting his eyes glow bright green. "But that makes it _a lot _easier to stop you. I don't take kindly to people who harm those I love, you know." He said, his voice low, warning him.

Plasmius scoffed. "Oh _please_. You have the mentality of an eighteen year old boy. What can you do?" Without hesitation, Plasmius fired off two ectoplasmic rays towards him.

Without flinching, Danny raised an ecto-shield, the rays bouncing off of it and striking the walls randomly. He created one to protect Sam as well, so that she wouldn't get hit by any stray blasts. "Quite a bit. Call off your birds, and stop trying to kill Jack, and maybe I'll think about leaving you alone. After all, he's sorry for what he did to you. You shouldn't hold such a grudge."

"What he did to me allowed me to acquire wealth and power beyond my wildest dreams." Plasmius laughed, unperturbed by the easily deflected blasts. He split apart them, forming four separate versions of himself, each talking in unison with the others. "No, what he did wrong however, was that he _dared _to steal _my _Maddie away from me. _That _is what can't be forgiven, my boy." The four ghosts hissed, each firing off two ecto-energy disks at the raven haired boy.

Danny let the white rings appear around his waist, transforming into Phantom in a flash. He breathed out a wave of cold air, freezing all eight of the ecto-energy disks in place, and they clattered to the ground, the white haired ghost shattering one underneath his feet. The temperature in the room must have dropped a good thirty degrees, and even in his ghost form, Plasmius found the chill get to him. Glass and screens in the room began to fog up, and ice began to creep up from the bottom of the floor.

Phantom tilted his head, eyes blazing, something unnatural in his gaze, calm though he appeared to be. "That's it?" He asked him. "That's the only reason that you decided to become a bad guy? Because a woman decided that she loved someone else more than you."

"Maddie and I were meant to be together." Plasmius said, feeling strangely hesitant. The very air around them crackled with energy, and he faintly realized that perhaps despite appearing like an eighteen year old, being around for one hundred years gave Phantom a distinct power advantage over him. "If not for that accident, she _would _have been mine."

"Oh yes, because it's not like _Maddie _has any say in who she marries." Phantom remarked dryly. The temperature fell again, and Phantom crushed another one of the frozen disks underneath his feet as he advanced forward another step. "That's it, then? That's your whole reason for turning into a would be murderer? Because the girl you loved chose someone else over you? Because you lost a few years of your social life? _That's it?"_

Phantom's voice was louder now, echoing through the basement lab. Frost was creeping over everything at this point, save for Sam, who appeared to be a warm spot in the cold. "You call _that _a problem?" Phantom hissed, eyes flickering in color, the atmosphere in the lab changing, the atmosphere about Phantom changing as the lights began to flicker, anything not frozen began to move faintly, as if there were some kind of indoor wind kicking up around them. "You think that's just such a terrible tragedy that it _justifies murder?"_

Plasmius scoffed, maintaining his cool. "It's not something that you would understand child. What suffering have you had in your life?" He and his clones fired off ectoplasmic rays at Phantom who flew upwards, avoiding them. He fired off a ray at his own, taking one of the clones by surprise by how fast it was, causing it to fade into oblivion. Now floating in the air, the lights in the lab dimmed, so that the only light sources in the room were Phantom and Plasmius' eyes.

Phantom's eyes which now, in addition to their usual bright green, held a faint red tint to them. "What suffering? What suffering indeed! I sure don't know a _thing _about suffering!" He hissed.

The wail that ripped the lab apart was unearthly.

* * *

Star Rivers groaned, not believing that Paulina had, of all things, sent her off to the school after dark, to collect something she had forgotten. She had been all dressed up and ready to go to the party at Mayor Master's mansion when Paulina had taken one look at her, and suddenly seemed to remember that she had left something really important in her school locker, that she had to have right now. So much for sweeping hot young studs of their feet tonight.

"Like it's _my _fault I picked out the same dress as her." Star grumbled, having changed back into a more sensible pair of slacks and T-shirt. Fancy party dresses were not what you sneaked into school buildings wearing, generally speaking. She wasn't even sure why she was doing this for Paulina, other than that she was far too worried about what would happen if she didn't. Star couldn't imagine losing her popularity status. It had happened once before, when Valerie Gray's father had lost his job, sending the girl into the poor house, and away from the A-List.

So here she was, sneaking into school well after everyone had gone home. It turned out to be easier than she had thought it would be, and she managed to climb in an unlocked window in one of the classrooms. She carefully made her way down the hall, using a flashlight to find Paulina's locker. She knew where it was by heart, of course, but a little assistance to make sure she didn't bump into anything never hurt.

Kneeling down, she unlocked Paulina's locker, easily fetching the photo album of Phantom that she apparently needed so 'direly'. Star rolled her eyes, flipping through it, holding her little flashlight in her mouth as she did so. She didn't see what was so good about Phantom. Didn't Paulina know that he was a ghost, and also kind of _dead_? That was like, necrophilia, right?

Slamming the locker door shut, Star used a little more force than she meant to, enough to cause the unlocked locker above it to fly into her face. "Ow." Star groaned, rubbing her forehead. No way was that not going to leave a bruise- ugh, she couldn't even imagine the amount of make up she would need to cover it up. "Bloody 724." She swore, standing up and peering into the locker. "You and your creepy mirror." She sneered, picking it up and taking it off it's hook.

Nobody used locker number 724 because of the ghost story behind it. Star, however, knew it was bull. There hadn't been anyone at Casper High who had committed suicide since the school had been rebuilt, and there was no way a story from the old Casper High would have been carried over to the new one. It was just a story someone had made up to hopefully discourage bullying their fellow students, not that it did much good.

Shining her flashlight in the locker, Star did notice something odd, however. Where the mirror had been hung, there was a space that was colored a bit differently from the space around it. Glancing back and forth through the empty halls, Star set down the mirror and put the flash light back in her mouth, aiming it so that it shone on that space. Reaching out with her hands, she touched the area, finding that something had been embedded in the wall, painted over with paint nearly the same color as the locker.

Grunting, she pried at it, and it eventually gave way, causing her to yelp and drop her flash light as she fell to the ground. What she had pulled out fell down with her however, landing in her lab. The metal box was cool to the touch, rusted a little with age. "What the?" Star frowned, standing back up. She shut the door to locker 724, and looked over the box in her hands, curiosity rising inside of her.

Shining her flashlight on it, she read the words etched into the metal aloud. "Property of Sidney Poindexter Casper High, Class of... Class of 2010? But that's-" She stammered, and then a grin broke across her face.

"Well forget _Paulina, _this is going to be _way _more interesting to look into."

After all, there had been no Class of 2010.


	8. An Old Tale

Author's Note: Shit parts of this chapter were hard to write. I am a horrible, terrible person clearly. Ah, I imagine it's only going to get the worse in the future when some flashback scenes come up, oh boy what fun will that be. We get our first hints of the series' most major antagonist, and it's someone I haven't used before. And that's all I'll say on that matter!

As always, Danny Phantom doesn't belong to me. Also, thanks everyone for getting me to the fifty review benchmark! Y'all are great.

* * *

The Once and Future Phantom

Chapter Eight: An Old Tale

She cradled the rusted metal box carefully in her arms, as if it would somehow break at a moment's notice, the secrets that it hid lost forever to her. Grabbing her flashlight and tucking it between her teeth, Star crept out of the school building the way she had came- through one of the seemingly permanently broken windows on the first floor. Once out, she spat her flashlight back out into her hands, and let out a giggle, holding the box close to her, repressing the urge to shout in glee at her find.

It wasn't exactly the sort of hobby that she told her A-List friends about, since they didn't exactly care that much about anything academic, but Star had a deep fascination with history. And nothing fascinated her more than the Great Amity Park Fire, and with good reason to. Her own great grandmother had survived the fire, one of a few, out of pure chance. She hadn't been there when the fire broke out, she had been hundreds of miles away, checking out college campuses.

Star had found her journal once, and had devoured it in nearly an evening, captured by the woman's experience. The one thing that had struck her more than anything was that she had no idea what was going on in Amity Park until someone stopped her from boarding a flight back home and told her in no uncertain terms that there was no longer an Amity Park to go back to.

The idea of having everything you knew suddenly ripped out from under you was both horrifying and strangely fascinating- that said, Star would never want it to happen to her. Her great grandmother, like the other survivors of the fire, had no clue as to what caused the fire.

But perhaps this box could provide her with some answers.

Of course, first she would have to get the blasted thing open, she thought, as she tugged at the top of the box with a grunt, finding it sealed tight. It didn't appear as if it was locked, but rather, time had done it's trick, and it had rusted itself shut. Well, she wasn't exactly going to let that stop her, there was no way she was going to be so close to a mystery, only to give up so easily.

"Come on." Star grunted through gritted teeth, tugging on it once more. She heaved a sigh, realizing that just her own two hands weren't going to cut it, and that she was going to have to wait until she got home to get it open. Not that she could read anything the box might contain in the dark night anyways, she thought, pausing a glance up to the starry sky. Sighing, she quickened her pace, running the last few blocks towards her house. She ran up to her room, dodging questions from her parents, and shut the door behind her, locking it for good measure.

"Now then." Star grinned, walking over and placing the box on her study desk, switching the lamp on. "Let's see if I can't figure out how to get you open." She said, taking a seat, and opening her desk drawer.

She ruled out the laser opener pretty quickly- who knew how stuffed this thing was underneath the lid, and she didn't want to accidentally ruin anything it contained. Shuffling through her drawer, she pulled out a small, flat piece of metal that might do the trick. Grunting a little from the effort, she slipped the piece of metal between a small crack between the lid and the box, and gave it all the force she had.

And the metal snapped in two, one half flying off to places unknown in her room. Star let out a yelp, falling over in her chair, and hitting the floor rather painfully. Groaning, she got herself back up, rubbing her head and hoping that nothing bruised tomorrow. At least she was a cheerleader, she thought, she'd taken worse falls than that from tumbling off the top of the pyramid.

"Okay that didn't work." She commented. She heard her mother call out worriedly from downstairs, obviously having heard the noise. Star called back that she was fine, she had just tripped. Turning back to the box, she frowned, peering down closely at it. No, it hadn't failed entirely, it looked like there was a little crack there that hadn't been there before. Grinning, she pulled out a bigger, but thinner piece of metal, and tried to force it open again.

This time, it gave way, opening with a groan. She let out a delighted shout, then blushed, when she realized her parents had probably heard her.

"Now then." She said to herself, eyes glimmering with excitement. "Let's see what secrets you hold."

* * *

The paper in front of her face was more than worth the dust that she was now covered in, Jazz Fenton thought, as she looked down at the old blueprint in her hands. It was a detailed blueprint of Fenton Works, that had probably been drawn up when it was first built by her great-grandparents. It was much like Fenton Works today, although the Fenton Works of old didn't have an Emergency Ops Center grafted to the roof, she noticed. That was something her own parents had added, their own personal touch to the place.

But there was one thing on the blueprints that wasn't a part of the house.

There was a missing room.

It was upstairs, the room on the left, closest to the stairs- or at least, the room that was _supposed _to have been there. She had given it a casual check earlier, and indeed, there was nothing there, just an expanse of wallpaper. To be honest, Jazz had always felt there was something unnatural about that space, but she was never able to put her finger on it. But now, she thought, she understood why.

Grabbing her flashlight, and rolling up the blueprints underneath her arm, she quietly left her room. She had waited until everyone else in the house had gone to sleep, not wanting to let anyone know what she was investigating. Creeping down the hallway, she made her way to the end of the hall, pausing by the staircase. Turning on the flashlight, she carefully balanced it on it's bottom so that it provided her with some illumination while she worked.

Jazz paused first, straining her ears a little. She smiled once she heard the sound of her dad's snoring, knowing that it meant her mother probably had her earplugs in. There was no way she would be waking them up again, and that provided her a bit of assurance. Taking in and letting out a deep breath, she pressed herself against the wall, placing an ear against it. Carefully, and not so loud that she would wake Dani, Jazz lightly rapped on the wall.

Thump thump thump.

It sounded normal. Pausing, she carefully walked over to the other side of the hallway, and repeated the same process on the other side of the wall. It definitely sounded the same. Turning back to the left side of the hall, she pressed her ear against the wall again. Jazz continued slowly and carefully repeating the process. Each time she got the normal sound of her fist rapping against the wall, she would move down a little further.

Thump thump thump.

Thump thump thump.

Thump thump thump.

_Thunk._

Jazz stopped, blinking a little. She carefully backed away, staring at the wall in front of her, eyes narrowing. She leaned in a bit more, once again pressing her ear to the wall.

Thunk thunk thunk.

"So it really was here." Jazz whispered lowly, stepping back again. This time, she felt against the wall with her hands, frowning deeply. Running it up and down, she certainly felt that something was different. She couldn't help but grin to herself then, resisting the urge to do a victory dance.

There really was a room here! Here was the door, covered up by wallpaper, perhaps a layer of plaster. The door handle had likely been removed beforehand and covered over, but there was a door underneath here. She was fairly sure of that.

Still, this wasn't enough to completely confirm her suspicions. Walking over, she grabbed her flashlight, and quietly crept downstairs, grabbing her shoes and her house keys, and carefully sneaked out of the house. She walked over towards the side of the house, where the missing room would have been. Shining her flashlight, she frowned. There weren't any windows like she had expected there to be, but maybe...

She made her way to the shed, hoping that none of her neighbors were awake at the moment and mistook her for a burglar. Still, this couldn't wait until morning, she thought, she had to know the truth now. Or at least, she had to come closer to it than before. Grabbing the ladder from the shed, she carefully set it up underneath where the missing room would be, and tucking her flashlight in her mouth, she climbed up it.

Once to the top, she carefully pulled the flashlight out of her mouth, keeping one hand on the ladder itself. She shone it over the wall, frowning a little. Even in the darkness, she could tell that something seemed a little off about the wall in places. If they'd gone out of the way to cover up the door, covering up the windows didn't surprise her very much.

Tucking the flashlight back inside her mouth, Jazz reached out, one of the odd spots in safe reach. She wrapped again against the out of place seeming piece of wall, and then next on a more normal piece. Just as she thought, the sounds were different.

There was something there.

Satisfied, Jazz climbed down the ladder, stashing it back where she had found it inside of the shed. Her research didn't end here, she thought, and she headed back inside the house and hurried up to her room. Switching off her flashlight, she pulled out her desk chair, once again pouring over the documents she had acquired from the attic.

If she was going to investigate the missing room any further, she had no choice but to try and break down the fake wall that covered up the door, and there was no way she could do that without arousing suspicion. Still, she'd like to get started on it without any interruptions, so perhaps there was a way she could arrange that she could get some guaranteed alone time in the house. After all, she sort of figured her parents wouldn't just let her bust a hole in their wall without trying to stop her somehow.

For now, she turned back to the photo album, intently studying the photos. They painted a slightly different picture of Grace and Richard than she had been told. The photograph on the mantelpiece was happy, all smiles. But in these photographs, things seemed more forced, Miranda's smiled became more and more strained the older she got. There was something in it that told Jazz that things weren't quite as they seemed on the outside, that perhaps the Fentons of the past weren't quite the big happy family they were today.

A hidden child.

A hidden room.

Phantom, a ghost with a human body, a human body that resembled her little sister.

The Great Amity Park Fire.

The survival of Fenton Works.

The Ghost Portal, that Phantom hated.

The sudden awakening of ghosts.

There was something there. Of that, Jazz had very little doubt. The pieces were all there, lying in front of her, but arranged in a manner that resulted in her being unable to put them together.

"What happened in Amity Park one hundred years ago?" Jazz asked aloud, eyes narrowing. There was nobody left alive to tell her the answers. She paused then, frowning.

Was that really the case?

Glancing over at her computer, she quickly booted it up. Running a search on the list of survivors from the Great Amity Park Fire turned up several lists of results and she frowned, winding through them until she found one that looked promising. Scrolling down the list, she naturally found Miranda's name, but there were others that stood out for her. Someone who had missed the fire because she was looking at colleges, and another whose entire family had left town just hours before the fire broke out.

_Amy (55), Eugene (56), and Sidney Poindexter (18)._

Something about that struck Jazz. Leaning back in her chair, she pondered over it for a moment. The son, Sidney would have been Danny's age when he died. Had they gone to school together? It was impossible to check, all data from the time of the fire had been destroyed- which Jazz found more than a little strange. Even if the physical copies had been destroyed, were there really no backups on computer databases? The fact that all data had been seemingly annihilated was strange, it sounded impossible.

Getting back into the thick of things, Jazz decided to follow this thread. Searching revealed that the Poindexter family had moved back to Amity Park after it was rebuilt ten years later. Their son had children, and... A smile lit up Jazz's face.

His youngest daughter was still around, living in Amity Park. Searching for it got her an address, and she decided that tomorrow, she'd be taking a little trip down memory lane. Maybe she would learn something.

* * *

Sam snapped awake, jolting up, heart racing in her chest and cold sweat trickling down her face. Eyes darting around the room, she tried to orient herself, before realizing that she was in a hospital room. Her worried parents loomed over her, and she had to clutch her head, her vision swimming before her. "Mom...? Dad...?"

"It's okay Sammie, take it easy sweetie." Pamela told her, placing a light hand on her shoulder. "You're safe now, they're already pumping that nasty stuff out of your system. Thank goodness Daniel found you when he did. I can't believe someone would have the nerve to try and drug my own daughter at a party thrown in our family's honor! And in the mayor's mansion of that?"

Sam blinked, wondering if she were suddenly in some kind of parallel dimension- her mother speaking well of Danny? Couldn't happen. But even as her vision swam, she spotted Danny out of the corner of her eyes, who lifted a finger to his lips, telling her to keep quiet.

"What happened?" Sam as blearily, wondering what the story he had invented was. At the same time her mind swam with questions. What had happened to Vlad after that? How did they escape? What had happened to the party? Argh, but it hurt to think, and it wasn't helping that her head felt as if it were underwater.

"We were hoping you could tell us that, honey." Her father spoke in gentle terms. "Daniel says that he got lost in the mansion when he came to pick you up," he paused here, giving his daughter a silent look asking her when she was planning on telling him that she had plans of ditching the party early, "...and he found someone trying to drag you off, with you half-drugged. You don't remember?"

"He was pretty frantic when he burst in the ballroom with you in his arms, so I'm inclined to believe him." Pamela added.

"I... no, I don't remember anything." Sam said, lowering her hands, her vision finally steadying. "I see. I'm sorry to have troubled you." She said after a moment. "Did... Mister Masters help us leave early?" She asked after a moment.

"Oh I'm afraid the mayor had some other trouble to attend to." Pamela clicked her tongue. "Some hoodlums broke into his house and set off an explosion in the basement. He says they were trying to rob him while the party was going on. What bold people! Most likely reheated to the awful person who was trying to carry you away, Sammie dear. Are you sure you're alright?" She asked concern evident in her tone. "Mister Masters looked as if he'd been through hell, the poor man."

"I'm fine." Sam said, giving them a small smile, before glancing over at Danny. "Do you think I could get a few minutes alone with Danny, maybe?" She asked.

Her parents hesitated for a moment- it seemed that even saving her wasn't enough to completely convince them that Danny wasn't some horrible hoodlum. They seemed to relent however, standing up. Pamela gave her daughter's hand a squeeze, nodding her head. "Alright sweetheart. We'll be just outside if you need us." She told her.

Sam waited until they were gone before she turned towards Danny, raising an eyebrow and half glaring at him. "Really Danny? I was carried off my some random person and drugged?"

Danny shrugged, looking a bit helpless. "It was the only thing I could think of on short notice. Vlad must have put something else in the sleeping drug he used on you, because you started acting like something was wrong. I just wanted to see to it that you got to a hospital as soon as possible." He paused, rubbing the back of his neck. "And I also sort of had to check to make sure I didn't bring down the whole mansion. I didn't, by the way, good news."

Sam groaned, but for different reasons this time, putting a hand on her head. "You used the ghostly wail, didn't you?" She asked.

"I kind of lost my temper." Danny admitted, frowning a little, glancing down at his feet. "That Vlad isn't anything to sneeze at either. He escaped pretty much whole, though I bet the destruction of his lab is going to set him back a little." He told her. "I don't think that will be the end of him though."

"Why don't you just say something?" Sam asked.

"I can't." Danny shrugged. "I dug my own grave a little, I guess. If I say something, then he'll say something- that is, if people even believe me in the first place. I'm not exactly thought of as the most trustworthy guy around here, you know." He pointed out. "But I'll find a way to deal with him and keep him off Jack's back- and yours. I can't believe he would go so low to try and kidnap you Sam. It's a damn good thing I got there when I did."

"Yeah well, I'm pretty surprised about it too." Sam said. "Imagine the town mayor drugging you. I didn't see it coming at all." She frowned. "I feel so stupid getting caught so easily like that."

"Hey, that's okay Sam." Danny said, resting a hand on her shoulder. "You wouldn't have thought that Vlad was the one behind everything. I was caught off guard too." He assured her. "You don't have anything to feel bad about, it's not your fault at all."

"Yeah, you're right." Sam smiled a little, giving his hand a light squeeze. "Are you sure Vlad's not going to try and expose you anyways?"

"He won't, and it's for the same reason I won't expose him." Danny told her. "He's too worried about his secret getting out." He shook his head. "He's apparently in love with Maddie- do you really think she'd love him or care about him at all if she found out he was half ghost and trying to murder her husband? Cause I sure don't."

"Ew." Sam made a face. "He's seriously trying to kill Jack just because he married Maddie?" Sam asked, shaking her head. "Why didn't he just ask her out in the first place?"

"Apparently they got together while Vlad was recovering in the hospital from his accident." Danny shrugged his shoulders. "And now he's upset because he thinks Maddie should have chosen him anyways even though he never at any point brought up his feelings for her with her. I mean, Maddie's pretty impressive at a wide variety of stuff, but I'm pretty sure she's not a psychic."

"Wow. Vlad was sort of there before, I'm not going to lie, but now he's way high up on my list of creepers." She shook her head. "I'd hate to imagine what would happen if he managed to carry out his plan and Maddie still didn't come sobbing into his arms. Dude needs to move on."

"No doubt." Danny nodded his head. There was a small knock on the door then, and her mother peeked her head in.

"Sam honey, the doctor says he needs to see you now." Pamela said. "I think it's about time for you to go home, Daniel. It's getting very late, and it is still a school night."

"Ah, yeah." Danny frowned, glancing back at Sam. "I guess so." He paused, leaning down to kiss Sam quickly on the lips, before getting back up, smiling at her. "I'll see you tomorrow. Be good for the doctors."

"I'll try, no promises." Sam said, laughing a bit. "See you tomorrow, Danny."

* * *

Although the hour was growing late, Star was still wide awake, looking at the assorted documents that lay on her desk. She had tied back her hair, keeping it out of her face as she studied the yellowing pages of the journal in front of her, holding it gingerly in her hands. It wasn't the only thing that had been contained within the metal box, but it was the one of most note, the most striking thing.

The handwritten journal was faded in some places, but it was still very much legible, and it was a good thing that it was. Star leaned back in her chair, closing her eyes, taking a deep breath. She'd been pulled away from studying what was in the box by a very angry Paulina, and by the time she had finally managed to deal with her temper tantrum, it was already this late. She almost thought about leaving everything for tomorrow but somehow, she felt that this couldn't wait.

She knew she had stumbled onto something big when she looked at the photograph stored inside of the box. It had been wedged into the journal, in the middle of the book. An old class photo, taken in the front of Casper High, with a sign in front of the students reading that this was Mrs. Henderson's 12th grade class, what would have become the graduating class of 2010.

Of course, nobody from that class had actually graduated.

The Great Amity Park Fire had happened, putting a stop to that, killing probably most of the students in the photograph.

Except for Sidney Poindexter, though she couldn't pick out who he might be. Maybe the nerdy looking kid in the corner, with the glasses? Nah, she thought- that would have been way too cliche.

But there was another face.

Star knew that face.

It was the shaggy, out of control black hair, the concealing clothing, the azure eyes, one of them dead and blind. Even with the low quality image, she could make out hints of bandages around his neck, and another around his left hand. It was only the expression that was out of place, sullen, downcast, the only student not looking at the camera and smiling.

That was Danny Fenton, no mistake about it.

Or at least, someone that looked remarkably like him.

No, it wasn't just some kind of Doppelganger, Star decided. That was the real Danny Fenton, in a photo from one hundred years ago.

"I wonder if Sam knows she's dating an old dude." Star remarked, turning over the photograph in her hands, to see if it would provide her anymore clues, but there was nothing. Setting it down, she once again turned to the journal in front of her. Taking in and letting out a deep breath, she opened up the first page, careful so as not to disturb anything. It seemed so fragile after all.

_Let me first start this journal by saying this. It's probably the most important thing I need to say._

_The fire wasn't Phantom's fault._

Star blinked. "Phantom?" She asked aloud. "There was a Phantom then too?"

_I don't know what they will say years from now, when I am dead. Miranda says nothing, but I am not sure how long her silence will go on. Phantom is still here, but I can't make myself talk to him. I can't blame him. I'm writing this because I've been handed by own death sentence. Cancer, a few months left to live._

_I'm also writing this because someone needs to learn the truth. Someone needs to know what happened. There are many lessons to be learned here, but if you, the reader, take one thing away from this, let it be this- look out for those around you. A person's suffering isn't always obvious._

_The greatest tragedy of the Amity Park Fire is perhaps that the world won't remember the truth about Grace and Richard Fenton. I've seen it with my own eyes, and seeing praise of them makes me ill. If there is one thing I can't abide by, it's bullies, bullies of any nature- whether it's simply pushing a child down on the playground because you're bigger than him, or well..._

_There are some parents who don't love their children._

_My name is Sidney Poindexter. I was a member of the ill fated class of 2010 at Casper High School. I survived the Great Amity Park Fire, one of the few. My parents and I escaped in the small hours of the night, before it started. Before all hell broke loose. There was no time to warn anyone else, although we tried._

_I do not know the real cause of the Great Amity Park Fire. I have many theories, but this journal is dedicated to the truth, so I won't write them here._

_We didn't know what was to come, but I had been given a stern warning._

_Get out of town._

_I wish I could have saved more people. Not just by warning them, but by preventing all of this from happening in the first place._

_I suppose I should tell you a story, and I hope you, reader, will know what to do with this information. I fear there is more to come than what I've written._

_I was never very popular at school. Maybe it was the name. Sidney Poindexter- sounds like I was destined for the life of a nerd._

"Oh, so it was really the nerd boy." Star observed. "Huh. That's probably a lot more funny than it should be."

_It wasn't that I was alone, or didn't have any friends, not at first. I had two of them in fact, good friends. And in turn, the three of us were always being picked on, in elementary school. We were the nerds, the geeks- it was the natural course for those stronger, bigger, and much more popular than us to pick on us. I hope that things improve in the future, but sadly, I have my doubts. But even when you're being picked on, having friends makes it better._

_I grew up going to school with Daniel Fenton. He was a quiet, withdrawn boy, who didn't talk to anyone. I remember that he was like that from the very first day I met him. Have you ever had that one person you always shared a class with, no matter how many years went by? Well, that was Daniel Fenton._

Star forced herself to pause here, turning back to the photograph on her desk, and then back to the journal. When she had discovered this box, she knew that she had stumbled onto something important, but she didn't expect something like this- not something like this.

She had nothing else to do but continue to read.

_Nobody talked to him. Nobody was friends with him, nobody tried. They thought he was weird, and to be avoided at all costs. He didn't talk to anyone, and he didn't try and make friends with anyone. There was no one he was close to. There were always whispers though. His parents were ghost hunters, ghost hunters! It was laughable, but they seemed serious about it._

_The Fentons were the laughingstock of the town, at least before the ghosts really came. Then suddenly, everyone took them seriously. Suddenly, they were needed._

_Suddenly, their sins became covered up by a town that refused to admit their heroes were really terrible people- while at the same time, damning their true hero._

_What kind of strength does it take to try and protect people even when nobody supports you? I can't imagine._

_I apologize, I'm getting ahead of myself._

_If myself and my friends were outcasts, then Daniel was a social enigma. His classmates didn't care about him, but there was always one or two teachers buzzing about him, worried about one thing or another. When I was in elementary school, I was too young to really understand it. Even if school was miserable, I went home to warm and loving parents- it never really occurred to me that this wasn't the case for everyone._

_I think I must have realized something when he came to school after a long absence, and could no longer see out of his left eye. It was in the fourth grade. I remember there being an outcry about it amongst some of the teachers. The students thought the eyepatch he was wearing was cool for awhile._

_His little sister entered school that year, and although people avoided Daniel because of his personality, it wasn't the same for Miranda._

_Here was an open target for their mockery of the Fenton's craziness. But make no mistake, Daniel Fenton cares about his sister. Cares enough about her that he would thrash anyone who would try and pick on her. The first emotion anyone saw Daniel express was anger, and it left a lasting impression. He first words he spoke on his own were to warn people that anyone who even thought about picking on his little sister would suffer the same fate as those kids, one of whom had to be shipped off to the hospital for his broken nose._

_There was a likewise warning that if they avoided her because of him, he'd still probably beat them up._

_I've said this earlier, but I dislike bullies. I didn't think very much of Daniel after that. If I knew what I know now back then, it might have changed my views._

_Well, my views would be changed anyways._

_Middle school. One of my friends moved away from Amity Park. I suppose it's for the best- they're alive now, I suppose. My other friend went to a different school. Suddenly, I was alone, all alone._

_It's hard to stand up against bullies when you're completely alone. Attempts at making friends failed. Nobody wanted to associate with the nerd who got wailed on all the time. I got so desperate that I sought out the only other person in the school who could probably understand what I was going through._

_Daniel Fenton._

_I was just trying to avoid getting pummeled, as I recall. I just wanted to eat my lunch in piece for once. The safest place in the jungle is on the lion's back, right? There was probably no safer place in the entire middle school than sharing a lunch table with Daniel. So I gathered all of my courage and asked him if I could sit there._

_He talks you know, if you talk to him._

_I wouldn't say that we were ever friends. I used him shamelessly as my shield, now that I think about it. That was wrong of me. I think he noticed, but he never said anything. He has a knack for crawling out of the woodwork, showing up where people least expect him. I wasn't bullied for a good long time, and it was nice._

_I probably should have been paying closer attention to the one who was protecting me._

_When I was fourteen, the unthinkable happened. Ghosts became real. The Fentons ceased to be crazy. Richard and Grace were now all that stood between us and an assortment of paranormal horrors._

_And one other._

_His name was Phantom, and he was a ghost. He had white hair and glowing green eyes, and a lot of teenage girls tended to love him. He looked around my age. Daniel was withdrawn and quiet, but Phantom was different- he was more outgoing, prone to witty one liners and sarcasm, and was filled with confidence._

_He was also blind in his left eye and was covered in scars._

_Richard and Grace hated Phantom. They believed he was evil, just like all of the other ghosts. And since they said so, many other people began to believe them. Evidence piled up to support them- sometimes Phantom would quit acting like a hero and do something downright villainous. He robbed some jewelry stores once and attacked the mayor another time. Although these turned out to be because he was being manipulated and framed, people stopped listening to the truth._

_Even though he was a hero, nobody believed in him._

_At Casper High, we believed in Phantom. Daniel became a symbol of everyone who hated Phantom, because he was the Fenton's eldest son. I learned then that his parents were expecting him to follow in their footsteps and become a ghost hunter. And they would push him to do so, push him past his limits, forcing their dream on him. To be a ghost hunter to them meant being the best- strong, fast, well trained._

_I started paying more attention to Daniel Fenton then._

_Someone else did too. We got a new therapist at the school. She seemed like a nice woman, but I didn't trust her. She went by the name of Penelope Spencer, and troubled Daniel Fenton was sent to her. He didn't go by choice, it seemed, and I don't think she was actually helping him. I realized, suddenly one day, and I'm not sure what sparked the revelation, that she was never trying to._

_The world is full of bullies, the worst of which are those in places that should be taken about people who truly care about people._

_The Fentons trained the Amity Park police force to fight against ghosts. I was sixteen when they were rolled out in full force. Us students still supported Phantom. Maybe it was just because he seemed like a teenager or maybe we just weren't as blinded to the truth as everyone else._

_I went to visit Daniel at home one day in the eleventh grade. He hadn't come to school for a few days, and since I was the only person who could be considered close to him, I was to drop off his schoolwork._

_The tension in the house was so thick, I nearly choked. I realized on that day, that although Richard and Grace liked to act like loving parents on the surface, underneath, they were the worst. I understood, suddenly, why Daniel was so protective of Miranda. If it weren't for him taking all of the abuse, they surely would have turned their attention towards her. Because he chose to make a sacrifice, she got to live without worrying about things no child should worry about._

_I will say it outright and in no uncertain terms because nobody else will do it._

_Richard and Grace Fenton were abusive. Daniel was a tool to them, nothing more. They were obsessed with ghosts, ghosts were their lives. They didn't care about anything else. I never got the story, just that there was a grudge involved. Grace was the worst of the two. She pressed and pushed Daniel hard, beyond what would have been the breaking point for anyone else. I don't know where he found the strength to put up with it._

_I tried to say something, but nobody believed me. The Fentons were wonderful people! They kept us safe from ghosts! They were closing in on that blasted Phantom. One day, they would capture him, and wouldn't that be wonderful?_

_Support for Phantom dried up by the time I entered senior year. Yet somehow he kept fighting to protect us, even though nobody at all was grateful. I was. I think I'd noticed by then, what nobody else had._

_So when Daniel Fenton went missing after the Fentons successfully captured Phantom, I knew._

_There are some parents who don't love their children._

_There are some parents who hate them._

_The last time I spoke to Daniel, was when I went to the Fenton's house a second time, because his teachers asked me to inquire after him. They thought he was being truant. I knew better._

_When I answered the door and asked if I could speak to Daniel, they asked me who that was. They told me that there was no one there by that name, that they didn't have a son._

_I knew at that point they knew the truth I suspected. They couldn't accept him, they wouldn't accept him. He wasn't a person anymore, wasn't their son, just a ghost, a ghost to be experimented on._

_I am not a very brave person. I shamefully admit that. It was out of character for me to sneak into the Fenton home after they went out to deliver a speech at town hall about their results._

_I'm surprised he was still alive._

_When I found him, it was Daniel there, not Phantom, locked away in that lab, in that cage- they put their own son in a cage, like an animal! He was __**human**__. I knew they knew then. I knew they didn't care. When our eyes met, he knew I knew. I told him I would let him out I would save him, and I found the key and helped him get out. He could barely move, how could they have done something like that?__** He was their son!**_

_I promised I would get him help, but he said it was too late. There would be nowhere for him to go. Soon enough, there would be nowhere for anyone to go. But he thanked me and then he told me in no uncertain terms that I needed to get out of town, as soon as possible._

_I asked if it was because his parents would have found out I was in their lab._

_He said no._

_I don't know what he was warning me against, but I took his warning to heart. Looking back on it, I am fairly certain he was dying, and even then, despite everything, he was the kind of person who still tried to save people. I am alive because Daniel Fenton- because __**Phantom **__was that strong. He protected everyone in Amity Park as best he could, but nobody protected him._

_I am writing this journal because someone needs to know the truth. I don't know what good it will do, now that years have passed. But what I do know is that Phantom is still suffering from wounds he won't admit to having. Before my time is up, I think I will try talking to him one more time. I don't know if it will do any good._

_I want someone to find this because I'm afraid history could repeat itself. Because someone needs to speak for the unspoken for. Because I still support Phantom. Because it eases my sins at least a little._

_I am writing this because I know the true cause of the fire was because Phantom wasn't there. I don't know what happened in Amity Park after we left, but I know Phantom wasn't there, he wasn't able to fight. Something happened, something big. He has never talked about it, Miranda has never talked about it- but she's afraid of it, terrified of it. She destroyed the Ghost Portal out of fear. There is something out there, something truly powerful and terrifying and given that Miranda still fears, it most likely still exists._

_I am writing this because I am very sure it will come back one day. I am writing this because when it does, it will come back to Amity Park. I am writing this so you, reader, can ensure that Phantom is here again to protect Amity Park from being destroyed again. It's a heavy burden to bear._

_Please try and bear it better than I did._

The journal ended there, and for awhile, Star could only in her chair, staring at her ceiling, trying to take it all again. She carefully set it down, picking up the class photo once again, and looked at it one more time. She looked at that face, the one she knew, the one she saw in the hallways sometimes.

There were a lot of points she didn't understand from the journal, things she didn't get. But the one thing she got from it loud and clear was something clearly terrible had happened in the past. She couldn't even make herself crack a joke about Sam dating someone who was supposed to be a grandpa- no wonder she was dating Danny when Star had always thought she was in love with Phantom growing up.

Standing up, Star quietly put away the journal and the photograph inside the metal box, and shut it. It was then that she picked up the box's last content, a small data disc, one that looked too old to be run on her computer, and frowned, holding it carefully in her hands. There was probably one person in this city who could find her a computer that the disc could run on, but she wasn't exactly sure how she was going to explain to Tucker Foley why she needed to so desperately see what was on this disc.

"Now I understand how Pandora felt." She mumbled, placing the data disc on top of the box. "But I can't stop here after all."

Because somehow, Star felt that this Sidney was right- something was coming. Perhaps it was just because she had been told to expect something, but in her bones, she knew that the timing of finding the box couldn't have been a coincidence.

She paused then, frowning a little as she suddenly realized something, tilting her head.

"Wait. Why does the name Penelope Spencer sound so familiar?"


	9. Enigma

Author's Note: Chapter Nine! And the plot thickens! We've got three antagonists in the mix, and soon you will learn the identity of the third, though some might have already suspected. It's a villain I've never used before, I'll say that much at least! Also, I said this in my one shot series, but I have plans for a new AU, _Spectral Revolution_, in the works. It's a fun idea and I'm having fun playing with it, so I hope you will all too. So keep an eye out for it in the near future~

Danny Phantom does not belong to me. Please read and review, if you could be so kind!

* * *

The Once and Future Phantom

Chapter Nine: Enigma

Vlad Masters was _furious_.

Not only had his ploy at trapping Phantom failed, but so had his attempt at taking Jack Fenton's life. The ghost shields around the Fenton household were very well intact, and by the time Phantom was done with dealing with him, he'd come back after the ghost vultures. It seemed that Vlad was going to have to find some new ghosts.

But to think that Phantom was also only half-ghost!

How did he do it? Phantom had clearly been around for one hundred years- there were records and evidence to attest to that, and Jack Fenton's own memories, even. In a way, Vlad had Phantom to blame for his accident just as much as he had to blame Jack for it- the bumbling man's fascination in the white haired ghost was what prompted him to study about the paranormal in the first place, and was what lead him to make the proto-portal. When Jack had claimed that he was 'sort of friends' with a ghost back home at a place called Amity Park, Vlad had scoffed at the idea at first.

It wasn't until he had become half ghost himself that he had realized that ghosts were very, very real. He had, for a long time, until last evening in fact, thought that he was alone in the world- there was no one else like him out there. The accident with the proto-portal had been a fluke, a horrible fluke that had caused him the one women he had ever loved in his life.

But it hadn't been, and there was another. And that was a thing that Vlad didn't understand. Phantom had been around for a hundred years- that much was true. And yet, here he was, unaging, seemingly unchanging. This Danny Fenton- the last name, of course, struck Vlad, perhaps there was truly a relation between him and the Fenton family? If it that were the case, then it seemed to be something which Jack and Maddie were also unaware of, though he was unsure about their children. He suspected that his children perhaps were aware that Danny and Phantom were one and the same, but as to anything else, he could not say.

No, Vlad pondered- Danny Fenton was definitely a Fenton. Jack had told him all about the ghost portal in the lab of his childhood home, that his great grandparents had built. It would have been one hundred and four years ago now, Vlad thought, roughly the right age to create Phantom. It made sense, he thought, once he abandoned the idea that his accident had been a fluke. Where there was a ghost portal, there was a chance to create a half ghost, was there not? It made sense.

What didn't make sense was Phantom's unchanging nature. Had he obtained immortality, or something akin to it? Vlad bristled at the thought, honestly feeling a ripple of envy. Such a thing was wasted on such a young whelp!

The other thing that didn't make sense was where this 'Danny Fenton' had even come from. If he was indeed related to the Fentons, then there was no record, no trace of him. Vlad had looked, checked over all the records- everything indicated that Jack's great grandparents, Grace and Richard, had only one child, a daughter, Miranda. A relative, of some sort then? No, there would have been records of that as well- but there was simply nothing. Vlad had considered it being an alias for a few moments, but dismissed it- there was nobody else who matched the right requirements.

What examining what records did exist however, revealed that they were all forged. Very well forged, mind you, but nevertheless, clearly fake once one gave them a very good look. No doubt the work of that Tucker Foley boy that Phantom was wont to hang around- all the records were electronic, and he was rather skilled at that sort of thing.

It was a puzzle- an enigma, even.

There was no mistake that Phantom was powerful- but Vlad hadn't known just how powerful until last evening. Although being half ghost meant that his own healing was quite speedy, he could still feel the pain, and could hear the ghostly wail echoing in his ears. It was a technique that Vlad himself had known about, but had never been able to pick up.

He had very little doubt that Phantom wouldn't simply tell him if he asked, so he dismissed that idea right away. His friends as well, the Fenton children, Sam, and Tucker would not as well. Likewise, he doubted that either Sam or Phantom would reveal his secret, as that would risk Phantom's own.

This was giving him a headache. And he had thought that Phantom was an enigma _before_.

* * *

If there was one person that Tucker Foley did not expect to show up at his doorstep, it was probably Star. And yet, here she was, giving him the sort of pleasant smile that she usually reserved for fellow members of the A List and boys that she wanted to impress. And Tucker, frankly, didn't like it one bit. He had very little doubt that she was up to something and had half a mind to slam the door in her face.

But as if sensing that urge, Star put her foot in the door, all but inviting herself inside. "Hi there, Tucker!" She began, speaking for all the world as if they had been friends all of their lives. "I'm sorry to bother you so early in the morning, but I need to ask a favor from you."

"Shouldn't you be in school?" Tucker observed, quirking a brow. Granted, he doubted a member of the A List would get in trouble even if they _did _skip.

"I don't want to hear that from you, Foley." Star quirked a brow, inviting herself further into the apartment, taking a seat on one of the chairs in Tucker's computer room. "Sure is a lot of tech in here. You make any money off of any of this stuff?" She asked, feeling vaguely curious.

"Sometimes. People hire me to fix and repair their computers, especially more old tech." He told her, frowning a little. What did she want? It would be nice if she would just get straight to the point. And to think, when he was a freshman, he would have killed to have someone like Star alone with him in his room. At least he had wised up as he had gotten older, he thought.

"Hm. Well, that's good then." Star said, reaching into her purse and passing him a data disk. Tucker took it, studying it curiously, noticing that it was fairly old tech. It probably came from somewhere in Miranda's generation, he thought, and wondered how Star had gone about getting it. "I need you to find me something that I can view that on. I'll buy it off of you if I have to."

"Well, this is a pretty old data disk." He began, handing it back to her. "Why do you need it anyways?" He asked, unable to keep a hint of suspicion out of his voice.

"You know my great grandmother was out of town during the Great Amity Park Fire, right? Looking at colleges." Star told him, and Tucker nodded- that was fairly common knowledge. Everyone around Amity Park knew who the old families were. "I was looking through some of her old stuff in storage, and I found this. I think it might be photos of Amity Park during the reconstruction. She was a photographer you know? I thought if it was, I could use them for my history project. Never before seen photos are sure to get me a good grade!"

"I see." Tucker frowned. Somehow he didn't think that Star was quite telling him the truth- but then again, he was being sort of ridiculous, wasn't he? No doubt his apprehension came from worrying that this disk could somehow expose Danny, but now that he thought about it, what business would someone like Star have in thinking about something like that anyways? Surely there was no harm in granting her request.

"Well, you're in luck." Tucker said, standing up, heading over towards a cabinet. Digging through it, he pulled out an old laptop and a custom power charger, which he passed on to Star. "This should run the disk, assuming it's formatted properly. I wouldn't use it without the power cord plugged in though, it doesn't have much juice to it's battery and I've never been able to find the materials to properly rebuild it. Old tech is hard to come by you know, everyone usually just throws it away once they get something shiny and new."

"And here I thought you would all be about the shiny and new." Star couldn't help but observe, taking the laptop from him.

"Yeah well, there's things to appreciate in the old tech as well." Tucker shrugged his shoulders. "Besides, I have to know about it, Phantom expects me to maintain his dinosaur of a laptop." He told her, the words sort of just slipping out.

"Phantom owns a laptop?" She snorted. "_That_ technophobe?"

"Like I said, it's a dinosaur." Tucker shrugged his shoulders. "For the laptop and the power cord, it'll be around thirty bucks for it. Like I said, it's not in great condition. If you give me some time, I could tinker with it, and bring it more up to speed, but..."

"No, no, this is fine." Star said quickly- a bit too quickly she thought, as Tucker's brows shot straight up. "I mean, I've only got to use it to do one thing, right? Besides, if you tinkered with it, I'm sure the price would shoot right up." She added, rolling her eyes. "But thirty bucks I can do." She said, putting the laptop aside for the moment, pulling out her wallet. Of course, that was goodbye to part of her budget for shoes for the month, but this was _far _more interesting than a new pair of pumps.

"Here." She said, thrusting the money at him. Tucker took it, counting it, before shoving it in his own pocket. "Okay then. Nice doing business with you, Star." He said, offering her his hand, which she shook. Of course, she would never tell anyone that she had been interacting with Tucker Foley, even if it _was _only for a business deal. "I can show myself out." She said, nodding her head at him, and quickly left the apartment.

She didn't want to wait until after school to investigate her new lead- but on the other hand, her mother would probably kill her if she found out that she cut school entirely. That, and she probably did owe Paulina an apology for ditching her last night. Besides, if she went to class, she might have the chance to personally observe the target of her current investigation.

That was, if he hadn't skipped class again.

* * *

The look on Mr. Lancer's face when Danny helped the limping Sam into class was probably worth coming to school today at all. After last night, to be honest, Danny wasn't really in the mood for it- he was still furious with Vlad, and it took every ounce of self-control he possessed not to go after him. He knew that Sam wouldn't like it if he did something like that, so he managed to get control of his own rage- besides, it wasn't like him to give into it so easily. Last night had been the exception.

Besides, Sam had wanted to come to school, desiring to have a normal day with Danny after everything that had been happening recently. One of her ankles was still throbbing, twisted during the chaos last night, she guessed. Nothing that she couldn't handle.

Still, there was almost something therapeutic about it, Danny thought, listening to Lancer drone on. In a way, part of his desire to begin this ruse was not only to spend extra time with Sam, and to date her properly without raising anyone's attention, was because he actually wanted to know what it was like to finish high school for a chance. He never had, of course, because that had been ruined long before the Great Amity Park Fire. He never had a chance at leading a normal life since he was born, never mind the portal accident.

And it was kind of nice, he thought, going through high school with actual friends. People didn't whisper about him, or think of him as violent and a recluse. They thought he was weird, but they didn't shy away from him, or outright fear him- which, Danny guessed, was all his own fault the first time around anyways. There was that one kid, that Poindexter- but Danny always got the impression that the kid wasn't really thinking of him as a friend. Not that he had minded back then, of course, it was the closest thing he'd ever had to one.

Which was kind of horrible, now that he thought about it.

He guessed in the end, the guy was braver than he had given him credit for. Smarter, too. He'd never imagine that he would be able to put two and two together- and of all things, have the balls to attempt to rescue him. It had all been for naught of course, but it had provided him with some sense of relief once he had learned that Sidney had headed his warning and had gotten out of town, alongside his parents.

At least he'd saved someone, in the end, aside from his own sister.

Even in the very end, he was always protecting Miranda. Danny never even really understood what his sister had thought of him after she'd learned the truth, even after the years passed. He guessed he never would now- he doubted that she would have become a ghost, she had lead a pretty full life, after all. Any regrets she had would have most likely been overshadowed by the contentment that had been the rest of her life. And he was glad for that, to be honest.

"Ah, right." Mr. Lancer said, starting to wind down the class. "Before I forget, I should let you all know that we have a new student counselor joining us after our last one ah," he cleared his throat. "Deciding to seek employment elsewhere." To that, there were a few snorts- everyone knew that the last one had turned tail and ran. "So if you need to speak with someone for any reasons, please do stop by the office. I'm sure Miss Spectra would love to speak to you and help you out."

Danny frowned, placing his chin in his hand. Why did that sound vaguely familiar? Not that he had any plans of going to see this new counselor- not with how the last one had turned out. That had been a terrible idea- the woman had clearly never been trying to help him at all, and he was convinced that Penelope Spencer had simply been getting a laugh out of manipulating high school students.

That said, he supposed this Miss Spectra was a rather nice lady. After all, what were the odds?

As the bell rang, dismissing class, Danny got up, and headed over towards Sam's desk, giving her a hand getting to her feet. She smiled at him, giving him a quick peck on the lips for his trouble. "Thanks Danny. I think I'll be okay from here on out though. I have to get to my elective, anyways. I'll see you in an hour and a half, I suppose." She grinned a little, when her boyfriend very visibly pouted, and couldn't help but laugh. "Well, you know, you could have taken the same one with me."

"Come on Sam, poetry?" Danny laughed. "Do I look like a poet to you?"

"Not really." Sam admitted, chuckling a bit. "That said, I don't much take you for a Latin person either."

"Hey, Latin is easy. I've got a good grade in that class." Danny frowned, before quickly smiling at her again, leaning down to give her a kiss on the forehead. "Off with you then, with your current land speed, you'll need all the time you can get to get all the way across campus."

"Funny." Sam said, arching her brows, punching him lightly in the shoulder before she shouldered her bag and headed off to her next class. Laughing a bit, Danny grabbed his own bag, scooting out of the classroom.

On the way out, however, Mr. Lancer glanced up. "Oh yes, Mr. Fenton, I need to speak with you if you have a moment."

"Uh." Danny froze, glancing back over at the balding teacher, frowning a little. Eventually, he shrugged his shoulders, plopping his butt back down in a nearby chair. "Okay. What's this about, Mr. Lancer? I don't think I've done anything to get myself in trouble. I mean, not recently at least."

"Oh no, nothing of the sort. Although you did skip class all of yesterday, but given recent circumstances, I'll let that one slide." The man began, leaning against his desk. "Oh yes, speaking of that, are you sure Miss Manson is alright? I heard about last night's ah, near incident with her." He said, trying to put it as delicately as possible.

"Well you'd have to ask Sam for a more accurate answer, but she seems pretty alright to me." Danny shrugged his shoulders. "Sam's a tough girl. It'll take more than just that to shake her."

"That I know well." Lancer admitted. "No, but the question I want to ask you is about you, Mr. Fenton." He said, meeting eyes with the boy- or nearly, he thought, Danny's left eye, blind as it was, was rather staring off somewhere to his left. "You see, I got a call from a deeply concerned Maddie Fenton the other day. She wanted to talk to me about something in lieu of your perpetually absent parents."

Ah, and there was the tell tale pale, Lancer thought, watching as what little color Danny had drained from his face. The boy awkwardly tugged on the collar of his aviator jacket, and Lancer vaguely wondered if he ever felt hot wearing that thing. They were heading into warmer weather now, and to be frank, it looked rather stifling. Of course, if what Maddie had told him was true, then it was likely because Danny had something to hide.

"You see, Maddie confessed to me that she worries that your relationship with your parents is ah, rather rocky." Lancer began. "To put it mildly. I know that you are living with Mr. Foley at the moment, correct?" That got a slow nod from the boy, and Lancer continued. "I was under the impression that your parents had sent you up here to provide you with a better education. No offense, Mr. Fenton, but it would seem that whatever you were getting back at home was sup-par at best." He said, quirking a brow. "However, she tells me you are not receiving living expenses or funds from your family. What's more is that she believes that you are showing distinct signs of abuse."

"What?" Danny laughed, standing up, shifting his bag on his shoulder, good eye looking anywhere but at Lancer. "No, of course not."

"Then why all the bandages, Mr. Fenton? Surely you didn't think no one would ever find it odd. Considering you don't ever seem to take them off... I can't think it's simply some kind of fashion statement." Lancer observed.

Danny frowned, mulling over what route he should take now. "I... um. There was a bad fire when I was a kid, an accident." He lied. "It's not exactly _pretty _under there. I mean, I haven't even shown it to Sam, and we're pretty serious, you know."

"Oh yes, I know. I hope your relationship goes well." Lancer said- that seemed to surprise Danny a little. He probably wasn't expecting approval from an authority figure outside of the Fentons, who seemed to be pretty much accepting of almost anything. Then again, recalling the Manson's own stance against her daughter's relationship with the boy, he couldn't blame him. "That said there's nothing in your history about a fire anywhere."

And Danny blanched at this too. Oh, Mr. Lancer was sure there was something to do with a fire at some point- he didn't seem to be lying in that regards. It just didn't seem as if was an accident as he claimed. "Daniel, I am trying to help you, as is Maddie. If your parents were hurting you, then we need to know so we can see to it that they face justice." Clearing his throat, Lancer nodded his head at one of Danny's hands, pointing at it. "I'd like to see what you're hiding, Mr. Fenton, and I don't think I'll be letting you leave this room until I do. And I'm not planning to take my eyes off of you, so don't try any of those sneaky tricks you usually use to escape detention."

"Mr. Lancer, come on, like I said, it was just an accident. A fire, that's all, it's no big deal." Danny lied. Why the hell hadn't someone seriously pulled him aside for this talk a hundred years ago? There were always some teachers that expressed 'concern' or whatever that was supposed to mean, but it had never amounted to much. And after his parents became the only line of defense against the ghosts that were invading Amity Park, the suspicions had been erased altogether. Nobody wanted to sully the names of their new heroes with accusations of child abuse.

It made his stomach churn.

"Then why do you want to hide it so badly?" The teacher asked.

"Well, like I said, it ain't pretty." Danny told him.

"I have a strong stomach." Mr. Lancer told him. "My mother was a doctor who worked in a burn center, in fact."

Danny was about to respond with an 'I know', before he realized that would be a bit strange, and caught himself. At this rate though, if he kept on defending himself, it would probably only look all the more suspicious. "Fine." He said after a moment, dropping his bag on the nearest table. "But look, whatever issues that you think are going on between me and my parents- trust me, they've been _dealt _with."

Without another word, he unzipped his jacket, hanging it on the side of a chair. Mr. Lancer's brow raised when he noticed that the bandages on the boy's body went far up past just his hands, wrapping around his arms and his torso, from the looks of things. How bad did a fire have to be to leave burns that extensive? Again, he couldn't help but feel that there was something more going on here, something more that young Daniel wasn't telling anyone. It seemed almost as if he didn't want anyone poking and prodding around in his past.

Danny moved to begin unwrapping the bandages on his right hand, leaving them hanging down once he got to past his wrist- obviously he was not inclined to show the teacher more than that.

Bile rose in Lancer's throat. He said that he had a strong stomach, but he was completely unprepared for what was underneath the bandages. Oh, yes, Danny's hand was burned- unmistakably to the third degree, the scarring appearing red and raw. The unmistakable white color of bone glinted through around the boy's first finger joints, and forcing himself to take a closer look, it appeared as if there was no unburned flesh on the entirety of his right hand. No _wonder _he didn't want to show such a sight to his girlfriend.

The taste of bile rose in Lancer's throat again as Danny worked at rewrapping the bandages around his hand. Something about seeing the hand in movement only managed to make everything worse. He was grateful when it was concealed again, and Danny stared at him with a pointed look. "See? Not pretty."

"Exactly what kind of fire did you say it was, Mr. Fenton?" Lancer asked, forcing back the wave of nausea that had struck him. Dimly, he recalled for a burn of that severity, one would normally be forced to consider amputation- what's more it appeared as if had gone completely untreated. How his hand even still _worked _was a complete mystery. "I can't think burns that bad could have been gotten from a simple accident- are you sure you don't want to take a doctor to look at it? Amity Park has some of the most highly trained doctors-"

And that was where Mr. Lancer was cut off, as it appeared that Danny had finally lost his patience. "Look." He told the man, pulling his jacket back on, zipping it up again. "All I want is to stay here in Amity Park, go to school, spend time with Sam, and hang out with my friends. I don't want people digging or prying into my past, even if they do claim to have my best interests in mind. My past is over, done, behind me, okay? I would appreciate if everyone stopped trying to bring it up all the time?"

"Is that _really _so much to ask?" He almost hissed at the teacher, barely able to keep his eyes from turning a bright green. "I just wanted to try knowing what being a _normal _teenager felt like for once in my life- or as normal as I can ever get anyways." He couldn't help but add- he would never be normal, that much was clear. Walking corpse did not normally fall into the definition of what was normal, after all. "The more you people pry the less of a chance I'll have to do that. I'll be out of your hair in a couple of years anyways, so why can't you just give me that!?"

"Daniel, we- _I_ just want to help." Mr. Lancer began, but was cut off once more.

"And the best way you can do that is by staying out of my business." He warned the teacher, grabbing his bag. "There's nothing you can do about it anymore anyways. What's done is already done." He half mumbled the last part, and the balding teacher was barely able to catch it- but caught it he did. His student had uttered it with such a finality that it seemed as if he was entirely convinced that this was the case.

"Look, if that's all, I'm going to my next class." Danny grumbled, heading for the door. He did, however, pause by the door frame, seeming as if he was considering saying something to the man. After a moment, he half glanced back at the teacher. "But if say... two of the most important and well loved people in town were really horrible monsters underneath all that- would you still do something about it?" He asked.

Mr. Lancer raised his brows at this, but it wasn't even a question he had to give much thought to. "Of course." He said, nodding his head firmly. "And if I couldn't get help on the local level, I would go higher until I found someone who would listen. Why do you ask?"

"I just wanted to know." Danny said, and for a brief second, there was an echo of a half smile on his face. "Well, in spite of what I said, you're a decent teacher, Lancer. It would have been nice if there had been some of your kind back then as well.." He mumbled, and it was clear that last part was meant for his ears only- but Lancer caught it as well. Perhaps wisely, however, he held his tongue.

Then his student was gone, and Mr. Lancer slumped down in his chair. Well, he hadn't expected to hear anything pleasant from Danny, but this was beyond his expectations. Exactly what kind of past did this young boy have?

* * *

As it turned out, Leslie Poindexter, Sidney Poindexter's granddaughter, was a very chatty old woman. She had been delighted when Jazz had shown up on her doorstep, wondering if she could ask her some questions about her grandfather. The seventy something old lady had busied herself making some tea for them, and although Jazz had asked if she could help her, she refused, insisting that she was a guest in her home. Eventually, she sat down with the red headed teenager, smiling at her as she placed a plate of teatime cookies in front of the girl.

"Well, it feels like it's been ages since I've had a visitor!" She declared, brushing a stray strand of gray hair out of her eyes, tucking it back into the otherwise neat bun that she held her hair in. Her eyes were a deep gray, and crinkled at the edges with age. Still, she moved very well for an older woman. "Now, you wanted to hear about my grandfather, yes? Is it for a history project?" She asked.

"Oh yes!" Jazz said quickly. That sounded fairly plausible, at least. "You see, my name's Jazz Fenton." She told her, finally recalling that she hadn't introduced herself yet.

"Oh yes, the Fentons!" Leslie said, smiling brightly at the young girl. "Your family owns Fenton Works, yes?" She laughed then. "Well what a silly question, of course they do. But I see. Your own, what would it be, your great grandmother was also a survivor of the Great Amity Park Fire, correct?"

"Yes, which is why I wanted to look into the histories of the other survivors. As part of a history project." Jazz lied. "I thought maybe Sidney Poindexter's granddaughter might have some stories to tell."

"Oh, just a few." Leslie confessed. "My grandfather passed away when I was still a little girl, you see. Cancer, it was, such a shame." She shook her head. "What I remember him was a strong and brave man, who stood up for others. He dedicated his life to trying to prevent child abuse and bullying, you know? Such an honorable man. I admired him a little, I'll admit."

"He sounds very nice." Jazz confessed. "And very fortunate. I read that he and his parents escaped the fire by leaving town a mere hour before it broke out."

"Oh yes." Leslie nodded her head. "The story I recall is that grandfather returned home that night and begged his parents, pleaded with them, telling them that they had to leave town right now. He claimed it was an awful premonition that he had. Well, they packed a few things in suitcases and took the family dog, and drove right out of there. By the time they got to the next town, they heard that Amity Park was engulfed in flames." She shook her head. "Terrible tragedy."

"Yes, I agree." Jazz nodded her head. "I hoping that you might have some knowledge about his life from before the fire?" She asked, sounding hesitant.

"Oh." Leslie said slowly, a look of realization dawning across her face. "Oh _oh_." She said, putting down her tea cup. "Oh I see." She said, before she sat up, and began all but tearing through the cabinets in the living room, as if she was searching for something. "I remember now. Grandfather told my father once, that someday one of you Fentons most like would come and ask us some questions."

Jazz blinked, looking a little confused- she wanted to ask if the woman was alright, but everything told her that Leslie was still very much of sound mind.

"And my father told me, and he said, Leslie, when that day comes, there's something you need to give that child." She said, digging through her cabinet, before standing up, emerging triumphant. "Grandfather saved these from the fire you see, he said that they might hold answers to questions, important questions." She told her, holding a stack of books in her arms. She carefully placed them on the tea table, and although they appeared somewhat dusty, Jazz could at least make out that they appeared to be a stack of yearbooks.

"You are here about Phantom, right?" She asked.

"Oh, yes!" Jazz said quickly. She had expected to get some answers out of coming here- but could it have been that this Sidney Poindexter knew about Phantom? The Phantom of long ago, the one that she didn't know.

"In our family, Phantom has always been a hero to us." She said, pulling aside some of the dusty yearbooks, handing Jazz a scrapbook. "Even though Amity Park hasn't always thought so. I hope the poor soul gets the credit he's due this time round. I think my grandfather would have liked that."

Jazz took the scrapbook from her, opening it up a little, coughing a bit from the dust that it raised. Inside were yellowed newspaper clippings, which had been cut out of the paper with care- the earliest from 2006. And she knew the face that was staring back at her right away, although it was a younger one. Shaggy snow white hair and bright green eyes, a familiar scar nixed over the left, though they were placed in a fourteen year old face, rather than the eighteen year old that she knew. The headline read 'Ghost Boy Strikes Again! Hero or Menace?'.

"Those are for you honey. They'll give you more insight than my doddering old lady memory ever would." Leslie commented, taking a seat and taking another sip of tea. "But I don't think all the things you will find will be pleasant, dear, so I thought I would do you a favor and warn you ahead of time. Your great-great grandparents weren't the people that everyone in Amity Park thinks." She said shortly, punctuating her sentence with a rather aggressive sip of tea.

"Recently I've started to suspect as much." Jazz admitted. "I... found records in our attic."

"I see." Leslie said, nodding her head, but did not seem to be inclined to pry. "Well, I'll tell you one thing that my father also told me, passed down from my grandfather. That Phantom boy is suffering still, much as he claims otherwise. Oh, I've seen it myself." She said, nodding her head. "He's a hundred years overdue for some proper help and he's going to break if he keeps trying to hide the fact that he has some problems. But I get the feeling that you're the right person to turn to give him a helping hand."

"I'll try." Jazz said, standing up and scooping up all of the gathered books. "Thank you, Mrs. Poindexter."

"Oh no, not at all." Leslie said, shaking her head, smiling as she set down her tea cup. "Do feel free to come over any time, honey."

Jazz gave her a soft smile, nodding her head. "I will."

* * *

"So you won't believe who came over today." Tucker said, glancing up at Danny as he returned back to their shared apartment- and flinched a little. His friend look a tad annoyed. More ghost trouble, he wondered?

"Who?" Danny asked, tossing his bag into his room, his aviator jacket quickly following suit, before he plopped down in a chair, sitting in it backwards and resting his arms on the top.

"Star." Tucker told him, an amused grin on his face.

"Seriously?" Danny snorted. "Are you sure you weren't dreaming?"

"Hey, if I were dreaming, it would have been Valerie coming to my doorstep, and she would be wearing nothing but a skimpy nightgown." Tucker pointed out.

"My, how honest." Danny said, raising his brows, shrugging his shoulders. "Wherever did I go wrong raising you, Tucker Foley, to have you turn into such a horn dog."

"Oh, like you don't have those thoughts about Sam." Tucker shot back, quirking a brow.

"Okay, point taken." Danny said. "So what did Star want from you anyways?" He asked. To be honest, he could never quite figure Star out. He could never really tell if her friendship with Paulina was the real thing or not, and she seemed a bit odd besides that. Odd hobbies, mostly. Sometimes he wondered how she managed to get into the A List, but then recalled that she was actually fairly attractive, all things considered. She was still weird though. Just in the hallway earlier today, she had caught his eyes, and given him the signal that she was 'watching him', and then had walked off.

"She wanted to buy an old laptop off of me. Something to view an older data disk her great grandmother left behind. Photos and stuff on it." Tucker told her. "You ever meet her great grandma, Danny?"

Danny flinched. "Yeah." He said, sounding rather short. "She was a lot like Star, actually. Another member of the A List. Photography student. She was out touring potential colleges when the fire happened. Felt kind of bad for her really, she came back to Amity Park to find that well... there was no more Amity Park."

Of course he remembered her. There was no way that he could ever forget.

_"Why didn't you do something?!" The eighteen year old girl shouted, tears filling up her dark blue eyes, anger apparent in her stance, in her every word. "I thought you were supposed to be some kind of hero or something, Phantom! I even sort of believed in you, even with what everyone said! And you just sat there and let the whole town burn to the ground?!" She spat out, and he found himself unable to wrench his gaze from her eyes._

_"My parents, my friends... everyone I've ever known here is __**dead**__! My house is gone, destroyed! I've got __**nothing **__left now. I don't even have a high school to graduate from anymore!" She shouted, hurling abuse at the white haired ghost. As glad as he was to see someone he knew from Amity Park was alive- and a classmate, nonetheless, well- these weren't very pleasant things to hear._

_But he couldn't blame her._

_She was right._

_"My entire life is __**gone**__! What am I supposed to do now?!" She shouted again- and in that moment, it was as if all the anger in her suddenly washed out, and she began to tremble. The tears that had been threatening to fall finally did, and began to flow in a river down her face, dropping on the rubble beneath them. Phantom guessed that she had been in such a state of shock since the news broke, that she hadn't even had a chance to properly let it all out yet._

_"What am I supposed to do now, Phantom?" She asked again, but this time, it was more like she was pleading with him. She didn't seem to be able to take it anymore, falling to her knees, now sobbing in earnest. After a moment of hesitation- he wasn't really good with people, what was he supposed to do with a crying girl- he defaulted to how he would handle Miranda in this situation. Kneeling down, he hesitantly held her shoulders, as gently as he possibly could- only for her to all but fall into her, sobbing into his chest._

_"I'm... sorry." Phantom slowly apologized. "I couldn't do anything. I can't make any excuses. I'm sorry."_

"Yeah that sounds horrible." Tucker frowned. At the same exact time, the ghost monitor on his desk and Danny's ghost sense went off, and Tucker cast his friend a sympathetic look. "Back to work?"

"Back to work." Danny said, standing up, rings flashing around his waist as he turned into Phantom. "Catch you later, Tucker."

* * *

"Jack, something's coming through the portal!" Maddie called out, as an alarm from the basement began to sound. Already halfway down to the lab, she charged up her Fenton Bazooka, ready to have at whatever was foolish enough to brazenly try and come through their portal.

"Coming Maddie!" Jack said, jumping to his feet, quickly choking down the rest of the fudge he had been eating. Running after his wife, he grabbed his trusty Jack O Nine Tails on the way down. "No ghost comes through Jack Fenton's house on Jack Fenton's watch!"

Bracing themselves for what was coming out of the portal, Jack and Maddie stood on the ready as the portal shifted, the normal ebb and flow disrupted as something tried to come through. Sure enough, in a few moments, out floated a ghost- but not the kind that Jack or Maddie had expected. This lady looked downright serene, even, as she floated along. She had blue skin and pale hair, and wore a dress that looked straight out of the middle ages. An amulet gleamed around her neck, and it was it that brought a hint of familiarity to Maddie.

She was in Phantom's files, under a very small folder called 'Allies'. Although Maddie was skeptical about this claim, the folder had contained four persons in it- 'Frostbite', 'Clockwork', 'Wulf', and this one, the last one- 'Dora Mattingly'.

It was enough to make Maddie lower the Fenton Bazooka, at least a tad.

The ghost woman opened her eyes, giving the Fenton pair a gentle smile and a bow of clear respect. "Good evening." She began. "I am Dora Mattingly. You are the Fenton family of this time, are you not?" She asked, looking over the pair. There was something critical in her eyes, as if she was studying them. When Jazz and Dani joined them in the basement, she cast her gaze towards them- and it seemed to soften a little as Dani let out a gasp of amazement upon seeing the ghost woman.

"Yes." Maddie said slowly, almost hesitant at first. "Did you... want to speak with us?" She asked, frowning a little. She didn't seem to intend to fight, at any rate.

"Dora!" There was a familiar voice then, although there was a note of happiness on it that Maddie had never heard before. Before she knew what happened, Phantom had appeared, no doubt drawn here by the presence of a new ghost. Surely though, the white haired ghost seemed very happy to see this one, and she in turn.

"Phantom!" Dora called out, a smile breaking on her face- as if she had seen an old friend for the first time in many years. Maddie thought it a tad odd that she addressed him as 'Phantom' so easily- wouldn't she have known Phantom when he was alive? Surely nobody would actually name their child Phantom, would they?

The two ghosts embraced, and tension levels in the room dropped. If Phantom was this happy to see her, she couldn't be much of a threat, at any rate.

"What are you doing here?" Phantom asked, though for once he did not seem displeased. "It's not Aragon is it?"

"Oh no, brother is still very much imprisoned." She told him, shaking her head- however, her expression only grew more grim. "I have come here with a much more dire warning than that. One that you and the Fentons need to hear, Phantom."

Phantom pulled back, a serious expression coming across his own face as well. "What?" He asked- but something in the tone of his voice and the way he held himself gave Maddie the impression that he already knew.

"The key to the Ghost King's sarcophagus is missing."


	10. Answers That Bring More Questions

Author's Note: Chapter ten is here, and it brings with it some answers! The most fun part of this chapter to write was Danny pretty much being a little shit to Vlad, I guess some things really never change. Oh boy though this just makes me realize how close we are to all the flashbacks won't those be fun to write.

Danny Phantom does not belong to me. Please read and review, if y'all could be so kind! Soon, very soon, I shall also unleash my brand new AU story. Wahahaha~

* * *

The Once and Future Phantom

Chapter Ten: Answers Bring More Questions

"The key to the Ghost King's sarcophagus is missing."

Maddie Fenton had known Phantom for some time now, ever since she moved to Amity Park after marrying her husband. The ghost had a wide array of emotions, shooting the theory that ghosts didn't possess them straight in the foot.

But there were two she'd never seen him express.

Real, true anger, for which Maddie supposed she should be grateful.

And fear.

This was fear.

Of course she knew of the Ghost King, of Pariah Dark- what proper paranormal scientist didn't? Once he ruled the Ghost Zone with an iron fist, before he was sealed away in the Sarcophagus of Forever Sleep, his items of power, the Ring of Rage and Crown of Fire sealed along with him. The key was said to be guarded by a mighty beast of some kind, left to float in the Ghost Zone. And there would hardly be a ghost fool enough to awaken the mighty tyrant.

Or so she had thought.

Clearly, that was not the case.

But what struck Maddie the most was Phantom's reaction to this news. He had gone as white as a sheet, as still as death- completely frozen. There was horror in his eyes, a kind of terror that Maddie had never seen there, and now, wished she hadn't. Briefly, her gaze drifted over towards Jack, and from the look on his face, she knew that he had never seen this expression before either- and he had known Phantom for much longer than she.

It was Jack who had told her the story of Pariah Dark, and the story had been passed on to him by Phantom. A ghost of vast and immense power- and that was before he donned his two items of power, she recollected.

If that ghost were let loose on the human world, how much harm could it do?

Maddie didn't want to have to answer that question.

"Are you sure?" Phantom asked after a long silence, finally banishing that expression of utter fear from his face- though it did not vanish entirely, traces of it lurked.

"I would not bring you such news as a joke, Phantom." Dora said simply, shaking her head.

"Who's the Ghost King?" Dani chimed in, having made her way up close to the two ghosts. Maddie had half a mind to pull her away- Phantom she wasn't worried about, but she still wasn't quite sure about this other ghost.

"Pariah Dark." Phantom responded, clenching his fists as he spoke. It almost seemed as if he had some sort of personal issue with the Ghost King- but that was silly, Maddie thought. Pariah Dark had been sealed away for at least a thousand years, and there was no reason for a ghost who was only one hundred years old in comparison to even be familiar with him, at least, not outside of his legend.

Truthfully, Maddie had been hoping that he didn't exist.

"A long time ago, he ruled over all of the ghosts in the Ghost Zone. He was a tyrant." Dora spoke, gently smiling at the young girl. She took a slight pause when she took a good look at her face, her gaze briefly and inexpiably drifting towards Phantom, before she kneeled down in front of Dani, gently resting a hand on her shoulder. "Long ago, long before I became a ghost, he was defeated and sealed away, never to be awoken again, his items of power sealed along with him."

"Sounds like a bad guy alright." Dani noted, nodding her head.

"Very bad." Dora said, standing up, her gaze now landing on the Fenton couple. They had both entirely lowered their weapons now, too shaken by this news. "I am not so sure if someone stole the key in an attempt to free the Ghost King himself, but rather, to acquire his items of power." She told them. "The Ring of Rage and the Crown of Fire are very dangerous artifacts, especially when put in the hands of someone who can't control them."

"But there's still a chance that he might wake up again." Phantom said, feeling as if his stomach was doing flip-flops.

"Again?" It as Jack who spoke up this time, looking at Phantom, clearly perplexed. "What do you mean by again?"

At this, Phantom's eyes widened, and it appeared for a moment that he had said something he hadn't meant to. He opened his mouth, but Dora stopped him with a look, shaking her head. "If by chance Pariah does become free again, then they deserve to have some idea about the events of the past if they are to fight him." She said. "After all, if he is freed, then it's highly likely that Amity Park will be the first place he comes."

"Why would he be interested in Amity Park?" Maddie asked, feeling her heart start to pound in her chest. "Is it the ghost portal? Because we can shut that down, if needed." She told her.

"No." Phantom said, shaking his head. For a few moments, he couldn't meet their eyes, but finally affixed his gaze to theirs, a grim expression on his face. "Because one hundred years ago, Pariah Dark was the one who burned Amity Park to the ground."

There was silence in the room then, dead silence. No one knew what to say. For one hundred years, the cause behind the Great Amity Park fire had remained unknown. If there were those among the survivors who knew, none of them had spoken about it, and over time, the truth had died out, had been forgotten. There were all sorts of theories and explanations that people had for it's origins, for why it had spread so fast, for why it had been so deadly- but none of them had been this.

Finally, it was Jack who broke the silence. He was sure, so sure, that his grandmother knew. Miranda must have known. Her parents were, after all, very prominent ghost hunters. Most of the tech that they had were based on designs created by either Grace or Richard Fenton to some degree. There was no way she didn't know- but she never said anything, not even to him, who had always been ensnared by her stories of ghosts and ghost hunting.

"Pariah Dark was unsealed before?" Jack asked, and it sounded like a dumb question. But it served to break the silence. "By who?"

"I don't know." Phantom frowned, and Dora likewise shook her head. "Nobody ever figured that much out. What we do know is that he came through-" he paused, looking as if he was forcing back something else he was going to say, "...some means other than Richard and Grace's ghost portal." He finished, gaze flickering back to the portal in question.

"The Ghost King is likely to be able to generate his own portals." Maddie reasoned, frowning. "A ghost that powerful should be able to slip between the worlds without any help."

"That's what I always suspected." Phantom nodded his head- but it was nice to have some confirmation. "I don't know what it was that drew him to Amity Park in the first place, but he descended upon the city, and tore it out from reality, putting it on a separate place of existence."

"We tried to come and help." Dora said, but it seemed as if this explanation was more for Phantom's ears. This too, struck Maddie as odd- surely she wasn't implying that Phantom, when human, had fought the Ghost King alone? "But we were cut off. And Clockwork is forbidden to interfere from such things." She said. "We tried our best though. A few stragglers, humans, came through into the Ghost Zone, and we shielded them. I doubt they remembered anything about it afterwards though."

"It's alright." Phantom said, giving Dora a small smile, putting a hand on her shoulder. "You tried. That's all that matters."

"It wasn't good enough." The ghost woman said ruefully. "I had to watch my own kingdom fall and was unable to do anything about it. I hoped that I could protect your home at least, Phantom. I owed you that much."

_Owed him? _Maddie couldn't help but think, once again wondering what kind of life the human Phantom had held. He was being hunted by ghosts, but was also helping them? She couldn't understand- although she did get the feeling she was beginning to understand why he wouldn't have cared for Jack's great grandparents. If he was helping ghosts, to some degree, at least ones like Dora, no doubt that they would be at odds.

She had already filed Dora in a very short list of 'non-threatening ghosts'. She seemed a very gentle soul, in fact. Perhaps she would be able to speak to the ghost woman later, ask her some burning questions she had about the Ghost Zone.

And perhaps about Phantom.

"Then how was the Ghost King beaten the first time around?" It was Jazz who spoke up now, and from the look in her eyes, Maddie could swear that it seemed her daughter knew something she did not. Phantom seemed to notice it too, his eyes narrowing for a moment.

"Richard and Miranda tried." Phantom stated simply, not making eye contact with any of the Fentons, save for Jazz. "They didn't last very long."

"Phantom." Maddie spoke up. "Did _you _fight with the Ghost King?"

There was a long pause then, a deep hesitation, as if she was brushing too close to secrets that he wanted to keep hidden. Then finally- "Yes."

"Why?" Maddie implored him, unable to understand why a human boy, a normal human boy, would feel the need to take on something of such unimaginable power.

"Because somebody had to." Phantom told her, still unable to meet her gaze. "Look, in the end, Pariah Dark was sealed away back into the Ghost Zone, and the Crown of Fire with him. The Ring of Rage was... hidden elsewhere." He said. "To make it a bit safer, in case whoever it was that freed him decided to try again. I thought it would be bad if they were kept in the same place."

"I wasn't able to protect anything though." Phantom said, an expression of deep regret crossing his face. "After Pariah was sealed, Amity Park was brought back to reality- and it was only then any outside help could get in to attempt to stop the fire. The only reason people survived at all was because they were lucky, or because they were hiding in a building with a ghost shield."

Maddie took in and let out a deep breath. It made sense, it made so much sense. But there was one question, above all others, that she wanted answered. "Phantom." She began, trying to wear a gentle expression, keep her voice calm and soothing- the question she wanted to ask wasn't the kind of question one wanted to hear, after all.

"Is that how you died?"

There was another silence in the room, although she could hear a slight shuffle from Jazz's feet. Oh, she knew something, that much was sure.

Finally Phantom gave her a small nod. "Yes." He told her, finally meeting her eyes, those blazing green orbs seeming a bit duller for once. "In exchange for a handful of survivors, I died."

"You didn't have to." Maddie said. Of course, if someone hadn't stopped Pariah there- and how had he? That was the big, unanswered question here, but she didn't feel like she would get it, even if she insisted. "It wasn't your responsibility."

Phantom let out a choked laugh then, a bitter smile gracing his lips, as if Maddie had know idea what she was talking about. "It was." He told her. "It _always _was my responsibility."

"But-" Maddie began, when Phantom cut her off, the ghost's eyes blazing.

"No." He said, his voice cold. "I don't want to talk about this anymore."

"Let it be, Maddie." Jack told his wife, placing a hand on her shoulder, giving it a small squeeze. "It's probably painful for him to talk about." He told her.

Maddie let out a deep breath, one that she didn't realize she had been holding, and gave her husband a small nod. "Alright. I'm sorry Phantom. That's a difficult subject for you, and I shouldn't have pried."

The tension seemed to run out of the ghost's body at her words, and he gave her a short nod. "It's okay." He glanced towards the ghost woman, giving her a small smile. "What do you plan on doing, Dora? Do you intend to return to the Ghost Zone?"

"I was hoping to begin looking for more clues." Dora told him.

"Oh, if it's not too much of a trouble." Maddie spoke up, glancing at Jack, who gave her a nod. "Perhaps you could stick around for a little bit? Jack and I would love to ask you some questions about the Ghost Zone. We've sent probes in before, but we've never been ourselves, so there are many elements that we're unclear of."

Dora paused at this, seeming to think it over, but eventually gave the red haired woman a small smile. "I would love to." She told them. "I was expecting a chiller reception from ghost hunters." She observed. "But you two seem to be quite nice people."

"Anyone that Phantom greets with that kind of smile can't possibly be bad." Jack observed out loud. "Grandmother always did make it clear to me that there were at least a few ghosts out there of a decent kind."

There was a strange expression on Dora's face then, and once more, her gaze shifted towards Phantom. "I see." She said finally, smiling at Jack. "She seems a very wise woman."

"Right, well, this pow-wow is fun and all," Phantom began, clearing his throat. "But I need to look into some things on my end as well."

"Oh but, I need to talk to you Phantom!" Jazz interjected.

"Later." Phantom told her, giving her a long, hard look. She'd looked into it, hadn't she? He knew that she knew something- possibly the kind of thing he never wanted any of them to know. But now wasn't the time for that, he could deal with Jazz later.

Not giving her any space to protest, he said a quick goodbye to Dora, before flying off. He had his own hunch that he wanted to follow up on.

Besides, he needed to talk to that ungrateful little shit again. This was the perfect excuse.

* * *

Jazz slumped down in her desk chair, clearly frustrated. She had hoped she would be able to speak with Phantom about what she had uncovered about him, but he'd managed to evade her. With what she had learned in her parent's lab just now only served to further bring everything together, forming a bigger and better picture than the one that she had before.

Gazing at the stack of books in front of her, she picked one up. It was the Casper High yearbook, from 2009, belonging to one Sidney Poindexter. She opened up the cover, looking at the page where signatures usually littered them, a page which she found to be almost depressingly blank, save for a few whose scrawl clearly gave them away as teachers.

And then there was Danny's signature. She knew it right away because nobody she had ever met before had handwriting so bad as Daniel Fenton. But she could still read it, and there, in nearly incomprehensible scrawl, was the name 'Danny Fenton'.

The person who had been cut out of the photographs, the hidden child- it was Phantom after all. The child that had been erased from history was Amity Park's one hundred year old protector, a boy- a mere boy, he'd been younger than her at the time, who had fought off the Ghost King and died in order to do so. He should have been hailed as a hero, not forgotten, dismissed, erased from history.

Sighing, she flipped through the yearbook, shuffling through it until she came to where the eleventh grade classes for the year were located. It wasn't hard to find him, his picture stood out from everyone's. A slightly younger face than she knew, but the same blue eyes, the same shaggy black hair, the same white aviator goggles strapped to the top of his head. There was a bandage around his forehead, covering who knew what kind of wound.

It was the same face that Jazz knew, but at once, not quite. The Danny Fenton she knew could never make sure an expression, as if he were already dead to the world. The irony that the one she knew now _was _dead was not lost on her.

There weren't any more pictures of him in the yearbook, and somehow, Jazz wasn't surprised. He wasn't even in his class photo, she had checked. Frowning, she put down the yearbook, and picked up the scrapbook again, the one filled with articles on Phantom. Here and there in the margins, there were notes written, as if this Sidney Poindexter were protesting the contents.

Phantom, Amity Park's ghostly protector, had four more years of service that no one even knew about. She didn't understand how it worked, to be honest, but she felt that it tied into why he had a human form in the first place. Perhaps, before he died, he was in some strange state of limbo, both human and ghost. She didn't know if a thing were possible, but there were a lot of things Jazz once thought impossible that had now become true.

She was related to Phantom, for one thing. Was she his great grand-niece? Something along those lines, she thought. His sister was her great grandmother, at any rate. She wasn't sure what to make of this information, but it _did _explain why Danny and Dani looked so similar. They were from the same gene pool, after all.

Turning back to the articles, she looked at one covered in red marks. 'Phantom: Public Ghost Enemy Number One' it declared, and there was a picture of a younger Phantom with a man who appeared to be the then mayor of the town. Another article, using the same picture ran the headline of 'Ghost Boy Attacks the Mayor!', but according to the notes furiously scrawled over the page, it was some kind of set up.

The one she hated the most was the last one, the very last one in the collection.

_Fenton Couple Capture Phantom, Ghostly Menace Subdued._

Grace and Richard Fenton were Danny Fenton's parents. She knew that much for sure by now. Yet somehow, she didn't think that mattered to them at all. She didn't think that all of the wounds that she saw in the pictures of Phantom associated with the newspaper articles had been entirely obtained in ghost hunting. Some of them, she thought, had to have come from his parents. His parents who were supposed to love and care for him, his parents who had failed in that duty.

Did they know? Did they ever know he was their son? Somehow Jazz could only picture that as making everything worse.

No _wonder _Phantom had issues.

* * *

Vlad Masters came to a stop outside of his office, a suddenly chill washing over him. With a deep frown, he dismissed his secretary, telling her to take the rest of the day off. Only once she was well out of the way, did he open the door, and enter into the office, somehow not all that surprised at who he found there.

"I see you slipped past security." He observed, glaring at the person who had the audacity to sit in his chair, at his desk.

"This a nice chair." Danny observed, spinning around in it once, as if he were a child. Turning back to face Vlad, he smiled at him, face shielded by the upturned hood of his flight jacket, and placed his hands on the man's desk. "A nice office too. So, how _did _you get to be mayor Vlad, I'd always wondered about that. It didn't seem like a lot of people intended to vote for you when they first went to the polls. Everyone was surprised when the results came in."

"I'm not in the mood to be lectured by a teenager." Vlad said shortly, approaching his desk and slamming his hand down on it. "Or whatever it is that you are."

"Technically, I'm your senior." Danny told him, raising his eyebrows, a smirk visible under the shadow cast by his hood. "You should be the one listening to me, Vlad."

"So what exactly _are _you, Daniel?" Vlad asked, glowering down at him, half wanting to swat the damn hood right off his face. Thanks to him, his lab was ruined, and three perfectly useful minions had been obliterated. Phantom was bad enough when he thought he was simply a normal, though strange ghost, but learning that he was most likely something akin to himself just had his blood boiling.

Where had the boy come from? How did he become half ghost? What was his connection to the Fenton family, and _why _did he not appear to age?

"Same as you." Danny observed, propping up one of his elbows on the table, leaning his chin into it. "Did you think you were alone in the world, Vlad? Me too, to be honest. Though I'd rather not fall into a category that includes _you_."

"The feeling is mutual, I can assure you." Vlad said. "That _is _my desk you know, I would advise you to move."

"Advise yes, make me, no." Danny said, that smirk appearing once again. Vlad forced himself to be calm, not wanting to give into whatever game the not-boy was playing. "I see you've kept your silence. I would tell, you know, if you even breathed a word of what you knew. I have people who would believe me."

"Oh, I don't doubt that you would." Vlad said. "I won't say anything Daniel, and I advise you not to do the same either. But I am curious as to one thing- how old are you?"

"I'll be turning one hundred and nineteen next year." Danny told him, inwardly grimacing. He hated admitting how old he was, but it was a card that he could hold over Vlad. "Jealous? You seem like the type interested in crap like eternal youth."

"Curious, more like." Vlad said. "But I'll bite, Daniel, Phantom, whoever it is that you are. What is it that brings you to my office?"

"The Ghost King." Danny told him, carefully observing Vlad's reaction. Either he was a very good actor, or he knew nothing, because the man didn't even flinch. "What do you know about him?"

"What anyone interested in the paranormal knows about him." Vlad said simply, shrugging his shoulders. He wasn't about to go and expose himself to some impertinent not-teen. "Why do you bring it up?"

"Someone stole the key to his sarcophagus." Danny said. "So they are either plotting to release him, or hoping to gain his artifacts of power, and use them themselves."

"Then I'll be sure to keep an eye out, if that's what you want." Vlad said. The boy was smarter than he gave him credit for, but then, he had no proof. No doubt he was drawn here on some kind of feeling, but Vlad intended to give nothing away. The key was safely hidden, in a place where not even another half-ghost (or whatever it was that Phantom was) could find it. As long as he didn't say anything, there was nothing that Phantom could do.

"Well, that's reassuring." Danny said, leaning back in Vlad's chair, lifting a brow. "Not that they would get very far even _with _the key, if the artifacts were what they were after." He began. He had a hunch that if Vlad were the culprit, that he wouldn't give himself away so easily- so the only other option was to lay a trap for him. "After all, only one of the items is sealed inside Pariah's castle."

"Oh?" Vlad asked, simply raising his brows. And how exactly did Phantom know that? It was most likely a bluff of some kind.

"Yeah." Danny told him, spinning in his chair once more, before stopping. "This really is a nice chair." He observed again, before standing up. "I'm going to take it with me."

"...what?" Vlad asked, his face completely blank at the sudden change of topic. "Well you can't. I bought and paid for it. It's rightfully mine."

"Nope, I think I'll take it home with me." Danny said, lifting the rather large chair up, placing it over his shoulder as if it weighed no more than a backpack. "The mayorship you hold probably isn't rightfully yours to begin with. Consider it as payment."

"Daniel, you can't just take my _chair_. Why don't you just buy one for yourself?" Vlad repeated again, rubbing his forehead. Clearly, however old he really was, he didn't have the emotional maturity of someone over eighteen.

"Because I have no money." Danny observed, shrugging his shoulders. "It's not exactly like you can do anything to stop me anyways. When it comes down to it, I'm probably a lot stronger than you." He said, and there was a glint in his eyes, concealed by his hood. He was goading him on clearly- if there was a reason, other than mere greed, that Vlad wanted the Ghost King's artifacts of power, it was probably to gain the strength to overwhelm him.

He would never find the Ring of Rage, no matter how hard he looked, and the Crown of Fire had been sealed in a separate box, away from the Sarcophagus of Eternal Sleep this time. There was very little risk of him waking the Ghost King up- after all, Vlad clearly wasn't an idiot.

"I could expose you." Vlad arched a brow.

"What, over a chair?" Danny rolled his eyes. "No you won't. You won't ever do that. Because you're far too afraid of what Maddie would think of you if she knew."

_That _Vlad did flinch at- it was true, after all. Maddie Fenton, the love of his life, was also a ghost hunter. She seemed to accept Phantom readily enough, but Vlad imagined he was simply the exception to the rule.

"So you came all this way, sneaked past security, only to warn me about the missing key, and steal my five hundred dollar desk chair?" Vlad asked him, his face completely deadpan. If the not-boy was trying to harass him, it was clearly working. "Some elder. You're just as juvenile as any of your little friends." He snorted.

"I'm okay with that. I'd rather be juvenile and immature, than be some old creep." Danny said, smirking a little. "Of course, being old isn't exactly on the list of things that I can even do, even if I wanted to."

"And how _do _you do it, exactly Daniel?" Vlad asked. "We're supposed to be the same, you and I. How exactly did you manage to suspend time?"

"Oh that's easy." Danny told him, taking a step back. A flash of light appeared around his waist, leaving Phantom in his wake.

"I died."

* * *

"Pray tell, may I ask you a question?"

Jazz nearly jumped out of her skin as someone spoke to her, whirling around. She hadn't even heard anyone come in- and she quickly realized why when she saw the source of the voice. Letting out a breath, she placed a hand over her heart. "Don't scare me like that."

"Oh, pardon." Dora said, blinking slowly. The Fentons had left a short while ago, leaving Dora to her own devices. Something about informing the mayor of a possible threat. "I did not mean to disturb. You are one of Phantom's friends, yes?" She asked.

"Yes." Jazz said, nodding her head- and a wash of relief crashed over Dora's face. "So are you, right?"

"Yes." Dora said slowly. "But I am not a human friend." She told her- her gaze then fell on the materials that Jazz had been studying, landing on the yearbook, open to the page where the photographs of Danny's eleventh grade class had been collected. "As I suspected, you _know_."

"Bits and pieces." Jazz said after a moment. "You knew him when he was alive, didn't you?" She asked.

"Yes." Dora nodded her head. "I did. He was a remarkable young boy."

"That much I've been able to gather." Jazz said. "He's family, isn't he? I mean... he's family to me."

"So you know that much as well." Dora said, slowly inclining her head. "Yes, he is. You have been looking into the matter, I see."

"I found some strange records and cut up photographs in the attic." Jazz told her. "I was driven to find answers." She frowned then, a bit of a haunted look crossing her eyes. "I'm not entirely sure that I like what I found though. Or what I think I found." There was a long pause there, as she seemed to resolve herself to ask the ghost woman a question. "Dora, I need to know- my great great grandparents... they hurt him, didn't they?"

There was a long pause of consideration there, before Dora gave the girl a sad look. "Yes." She said simply. "Very, very much so. I only know a little of it, I'm afraid. Phantom was always so closed about what happened at home."

"I can see why." Jazz frowned. She couldn't believe that she had such people in the family- and they were ones that her father looked up to as well! But he didn't know, there was no way that he could have known. If he had even an inkling of the truth, she had very little doubt that her father would promptly trash every photograph he had of them in the house. Seeing those smiling faces on the mantelpiece and knowing the malice hidden behind them made Jazz sick.

"They wanted a weapon, more than a son." Dora said. "Against ghosts. Grace was obsessed with them. Every waking thought was _filled _with ghosts. Not like your mother." She said, shaking her head. "I was apprehensive upon coming here, wondering what sort of people I would face- but your parents are wonderful. I only wish they could have been..."

"Me too." Jazz said, finishing for her. "They'd probably adopt Danny in a heartbeat now if he asked them too, even if they did learn everything. _Especially _if they learned everything."

"Why did he still do it, though?" Jazz asked, shaking her head. "I don't understand how he could suffer through all that and still be the kind of person to want to protect everyone. I don't know where he got the strength from."

"I cannot say." Dora shook her head again. "I only know that he did and asked no reward from it." She smiled at her a little. "But you say that he has friends now? Human friends?"

"He as a girlfriend too." Jazz said, wondering again how much Sam knew about everything. Possibly more than anyone else had been told, she thought.

Dora's face lit up. "Oh, wonderful! I was so worried about him, all this time. I knew that he was trapped within the confines of Amity Park, but thanks to the barrier, I could not go see him. He had no real friends when he was alive you see, I always thought that was awful. He was such a nice boy, once you got to know him. He seems to have opened up since then, and that makes me so relieved."

"He seems pretty important to you." Jazz observed.

"Oh yes." Dora nodded her head. "Without him, I would still be trapped, and under my brother's control. He gave me my freedom, I only wish that I could have done the same for him."

There was a long, assessing pause then, before Jazz stood up. "His room is still here, isn't it?" She asked him, glancing out towards the hall, in the direction of the missing room. "It's sealed behind a wall, and I can't get in, but I know it's there. Dora, if it's not too much to ask- do you think you could take me in there?"

"I suppose that I could." Dora said after a moment, frowning. She was sure Phantom would be rather annoyed if he found out she had- but before her, she could only see an earnest young girl who wanted to help him, just as Dora once had. She thought it would do Phantom some good, perhaps, if there were someone who knew his secrets, all of his secrets, including the ones that she didn't know.

What had happened to Phantom after his parents had captured him? Dora never knew, and she did not think he would tell her if she asked.

"Alright." Dora nodded her head after a long moment of thought, smiling at Jazz. Together, the two woman made it down the hall, and Jazz was grateful that her parents had left. Dani was still around, she knew, but as long as they were quiet, they could do this without Dani's knowledge. "Your hand, if you would."

"Oh, yes." Jazz said, extending her hand to Dora, who took it lightly. It was a strange sensation- Jazz felt as if she was touching something, but Dora's hand was not quite solid in her own. And then the ghost woman looked forward, at the blank wall, and turned the both of them intangible.

It was all Jazz could do to bite back a startled yelp as the cold tingle ran up her spine, and they passed through a wall. When she let go, all her warmth came back to her in a rush, and it took her a few moments to reorient herself. When she did, Jazz looked around, switching on the flashlight that she had remembered to bring with her. There were only faint cracks of light coming into the room, from the setting sun outside, where the brick facade didn't _quite _cover the sealed windows. Other than that, the room was dark.

Dumbly, Jazz found herself searching for a light switch, flicking it on. To her surprise, there was a small flicker of lights in the room- before she it went dark again, and she could hear the sound of a fuse being blown elsewhere in the house. From Dani's shout of annoyance- she was down in the lab somewhere, it seemed, the power had just been knocked out to the entire house.

"Well, that wasn't smart of me." Jazz said aloud, only about to spot Dora by her ghostly glow, and her glowing eyes.

"Allow me." She said, summoning a great ball of glowing ectoplasm, which she then hovered in the air, illuminating the room. Together with her flashlight, finally, a real picture of the hidden room came to light.

It was covered in dust, but that was to be expected, considering for how long it had been sealed. But the first thing that struck Jazz was how very little it looked like it was the room of a teenage boy. In the corner of the room, shoved to the side almost, lay a bed, and a nightstand next to it. There was a dresser and a desk, also shoved to one side, making room for the punching bag that hung from the ceiling, which judging from the wear and tear, had been well used.

"It's so... sparse." Jazz breathed, and nearly gagged on dust as she did. Heading further into the room, she made her way to the corner, and to the nightstand. Finding what appeared to be a photograph, she picked it up, finding that it seemed to be the only thing in the room free of dust. Phantom must have come here from time to time, she thought.

Staring back at her was a family photo, although this one only consisted of two members of the Fenton family. And unlike the photograph in his yearbook, in this photo, Danny was smiling a faint hint of one. He appeared to be around sixteen years old, and she couldn't help but find her eyes drifting towards the bandage around his throat. His bare arms exposed various scars, some of which looked like he had sewn them up himself, and there was a blossoming bruise on his right forearm in the picture.

Seated in his lap was a beaming young girl, around twelve years old, and this one Jazz did recognize from her pictures. Her great grandmother, Miranda Fenton, a petite blonde girl who was nearly dwarfed by her older brother, her blue eyes very much the same shade as his. She wore light, fluttery clothing, a sundress and some bangle bracelets around her wrists, and a pair of sandals.

They looked close.

Jazz found herself, looking at this photograph, wondering why Miranda would never speak of him. "I don't understand it." She said, setting the photograph down. "Why would she pretend she didn't have a brother?"

"I don't know." Dora said, shaking her head. "They were very close when they were alive. Like a family of two people. Their parents didn't pay very much attention to her at all. It was only Phantom who did."

Jazz opened her mouth to ask her another question, when the sound of the power flickering back on caught her attention.

And then there was the _scream_.

* * *

"Damnit Jazz!" Dani called out, as the lab suddenly went dark. Whatever her sister was doing up there had caused the whole house to go dark. Grumbling, she swore to herself, the fourteen year old girl crossing her arms and pouting. She had been busy using the lab computer to do a class essay. "I didn't even have a chance to save. Now I'll have to write it all over again. _Uuuuugh_."

Groaning, but unable to do anything about it, Dani got up, and began searching around for the flashlight that she knew her parents kept in here somewhere. Losing power on occasion was the price they had to pay for having such an old house, as cool as Fenton Works could be. None of her friend's houses would blackout this easily- they always thought it was a novel concept.

Managing to stub her toe in the search effort, Dani grunted, hopping about on one foot, at which point she promptly banged her head into the wall. Throwing her hands up in the air, grumbling in frustration, she sat her butt down, crossing her legs in front of her, trying to ignore the throbbing in her toe and head.

"What I wouldn't kill for Danny's night vision." She muttered, waiting impatiently for her eyes to adjust to the dark. Shouldn't the house's internal computer system booted the power back up by now? Or had that gone down as well? No, it was attached to a Fenton Generator, it shouldn't have been knocked out so easily. What the hell was Jazz doing upstairs anyways, rewiring her room?

Groaning, Dani stumbled to her feet, her eyes as adjusted as they would ever be. Feeling along the wall, she let out a slight yelp as she suddenly ran out of wall, and found herself stumbling onto the ground. Groaning, she pushed herself to sit up, rubbing her head. Where the hell had she even fallen? The only place in the lab where there would be a big gaping hole was...

She paled, the sound of the power coming back on sounding like an ill omen in her ears. She pulled herself up, then grunted, her foot entangled in a wire. And then, in a rush, power came back to the lab. Swearing underneath her breath, Dani tugged at the wire that held her foot in place- as cool as ghost powers sounded, to be honest, she really didn't want to tempt fate.

A flicker of bright green.

"Oh shit."

Her last thought before the portal consumed her, and the pain came, drowning out everything else, was the dumb thought that her mother would probably be really angry if she found out her last words were her swearing.

She screamed.


	11. Hybrid

Author's Note: A wild chapter eleven has appeared! Sorry guys, Tumblr has suckered me into writing a lot of little Danny Phantom related oneshots, I am so very easily distracted by things. But, here we have the next chapter, in which things continue to happen! Also this story has now hit over 10,000 views, thanks you guys are the best!

Danny Phantom does not belong to me.

* * *

The Once and Future Phantom

Chapter Eleven: Hybrid

Jazz almost felt her heart drop to her stomach as the sound of a scream tore through the Fenton Works building. And not just any scream, but the scream of her own little sister, which caused her blood to run cold. Dropping her flashlight, she stared at Dora, her eyes wide. "The lab!" She hissed, eyes pleading with the ghost woman, who seemed to understand what she wanted without her even having to breathe a word of it.

A cold tingle passed through Jazz's body again as she felt herself go through the floor of the Fenton Works building, going from the second story down on to the basement lab, where Dora let her down. Her heart pounded in her chest, eyes frantically darting around for her little sister, terrified of what she would find when she found her. And then she saw it, the Fenton Ghost Portal, crackling with electricity, and a slumped figure in front of it.

White hair.

Had it not been for the size, Jazz almost might have mistaken her for Phantom for a moment. In the back of her mind, the logical, detached part of her brain was already working- a strange state of limbo, she had thought, and Phantom not liking the Ghost Portal. Something had happened to him, something that was now happening to Dani, her brain told her, and she had to push those thoughts aside- now was not the time for theories about Phantom.

Scrambling over to her fallen sister, Jazz carefully scooped her up in her arms, chest tightening when she realized that she wasn't breathing. Her heart must have been pounding a mile a minute, and her brain was moving at a lightspeed pace, but was unable to reach any decisions- she didn't know what to do, she didn't know what to do with this, she didn't know what had happened, but Dani wasn't breathing and her hair was white and she was glowing!

Then finally, something in her head clicked. "Dora!" She called over towards the ghostly woman, finally managing to tear her eyes away from Dani. "Please find Phantom!"

Dora gave her a curt nod, before flying off, and Jazz could only hope that she could find Phantom quickly, because he was most likely the only person who could help her now. Turning back towards Dani, she tried to wake her back up. "Dani!" She called out. "Dani, wake up! Come on, oh please be alright, Dani!"

"...Jazz?" Her eyes blinked open, but instead of the light blue that she was used to, they were a bright green. The same color as Phantom's eyes, she thought dully- it made sense. If their human forms looked alike, then if they were both ghosts... she didn't like where her thoughts were going, so she shook them off, as quick as they came.

"Dani, oh thank God." Jazz breathed, holding her little sister close to her. "I thought I had lost you." She said, unable to force herself to accept the fact that Dani might have been killed, that this might be her ghost- but something stopped that line of logic where it started, and that something was Phantom's mystery. Had something similar happened to him in the past? Was that why there was a Phantom even before 'Danny Fenton' died?

"What's wrong?" Dani asked, her head swimming, memories blurry. There had been a power outage and then- and then she couldn't remember. She cast a glance down towards her hands, letting out a small yelp when she noticed that she was glowing. "Why am I glowing?" She asked her sister, green eyes desperately pleading with her- before her memories came back to her in a rush.

She had been looking for a flashlight, but had ended up falling into the Ghost Portal, now just an empty lump in the wall due to the loss of power. She tried to get back out, noticing that it was starting back up, but one of her feet was caught, tangled in the wires- and then the Portal had started right back up.

With her inside it.

Had- had she died? Was she a ghost? Or was... Phantom got his powers from the Ghost Portal, all those years ago, had something like that happened to her? Or was she really dead, and just a ghost or...

"Dani, calm down." Jazz's voice implored her, and she could feel her sister's warm hands on her shoulders. She helped her sister into a sitting up position. "Panicking isn't going to get us anywhere. Dora is going to go find Phantom, and he's going to help us, okay?"

"Okay." Dani said, slowly nodding her head, trying to calm herself down. Jazz was right, panicking was only going to make everything worse. She had to remain calm. Vaguely though, she couldn't help but wonder if Danny had felt something similar when he had first become Phantom.

"That's my little sister." Jazz said, smiling at her, reaching up to ruffle her hair. "Don't worry, we're going to work this all out, okay? So now all you have to do is just stay..." She trailed off, her eyes freezing as they looked down towards her sister's feet. Her breath caught in her throat, her blood turning to ice in veins.

Oh god.

"Jazz?" Dani blinked, wondering what it was. She felt a little strange, to be honest, but something strange had just happened to her, so that was to be expected. Frowning, she followed Jazz's gaze, and she too, quickly froze. "N-no." She stammered, shakily reaching her hands over towards her feet. "Oh no. No no no NO!"

They- they were melting! Dissolving right before her eyes, turning into this strange green glob- wasn't that ectoplasm, that was that ectoplasm, oh god she was going to turn into a puddle of this stuff, wasn't she? Screaming a little, she noticed that her hands were now beginning to turn into this stuff as well, and she really did begin to panic now, wondering if this was how it was all going to end, if she was just going to become a puddle of ectoplasm.

She was going to die, wasn't she, oh god, she was going to die!

"Dani!" Jazz called out, desperately reaching over to grab one of her hands, but found what she held was simply a slowly dissolving glob of ectoplasm. What was going on? What was happening to her sister? This couldn't be real, this had to be some kind of dream, some kind of nightmare, her sister couldn't be going to pieces in front of her, oh where was Phantom surely he could help but where was he, was he even going to make it?

"_Dani!_"

Just hearing Danny's voice was enough to bring some relief to Jazz, and she could see it reflected on her sister's face as well. The black haired boy practically tore over towards them, all but scooping Dani out of Jazz's arms, to which neither of them protested very much. His eyes darted over the girl, and an indescribable array of emotions crossed his face, before he finally turned towards Jazz, casting a sharp gaze on her.

"What happened?" He almost barked out the question, in a demanding tone that she wasn't used to. Dani flinched a little at it, and despite herself, so did Jazz. But it was the former who spoke, although her voice was weak, and laced with a note of terror.

"I-I was just looking for a flashlight." She began. "And then I wandered into the wrong place, and my foot got stuck and..." She sniffed, starting to sob now, shimmering green tears trailing down her cheeks. "Am I going to die? Danny, I don't want to die."

"You're not going to die." Danny reassured her, his gaze softening. "I won't let that happen, Dani, but I'm going to need you to trust me." He told her, his tone turning gentle, as if he was sorry for snapping just a second ago.

"I do." Dani sniffed, and she would have clung to him, but her hands had more or less turned to ectoplasmic goo at that point, which she was trying really hard not to think about. Danny was here now, and he had experience with this, right? So she was going to be okay, she was going to be just fine.

"Good." Danny smiled at her, praying that he was right. This hadn't happened to him after his own accident with the portal, but the circumstances had been different at the time. According to Jazz, Vlad's own portal accident had been followed with a bout of illness with something called 'ecto-acne', and this hadn't happened to him either. Circumstances varied between each of their accidents, even the cause of him becoming half ghost in the first place was because of the Fenton Ghost Portal, just like Dani.

"Dani, I need you to concentrate. If you can turn human again you should, I think, be able to stop this." He told her, carefully lying her back down on the ground, propping her up with one hand on her back. "Okay? I need you to find the warmth in your chest and let it embrace you. Can you do that?"

There was a small sniff then, and then a slow nod. "I think so." She said weakly. "I'll try." Gulping a little, she closed her eyes, trying her best to concentrate, to force back her horror for the moment. And she did, she did feel it, that comforting, reassuring presence. She embraced it, just as he told her to, and in a rush, she could feel herself warming up, and her body growing heavier, and with slight hesitation, she peeked an eye open.

The first thing she noticed was that her hands and feet were back, and that she wasn't glowing anymore. She could almost cry, she thought. No, rather, she was already still crying. "I did it!" She exclaimed, eyes going wide. "I'm back to normal! Oh, thank you Danny, I knew I could count on you!" She said, reaching over to embrace him in a tight hug. In the back of her mind, she noted that he didn't seem to be quite as cold as she remembered, but she quickly put the thought out of her mind, drowned out by her own happiness.

"You're not out of the woods just yet, kiddo." Danny shook his head, but ruffled her hair, trying to look reassuring. "This is just a stopgap measure. Something is wrong with your ghost half, it's unstable, and I'm afraid that the moment you use your powers again, something like that is going to happen all over again. We need to stop it." He told her, before glancing back at Jazz. "Where are Jack and Maddie?"

"Out. I think they're discussing the Ghost King matter with the mayor." Jazz said, blinking a little- and took note of the small snort that Danny made when she brought up Vlad. Well, to be honest, she didn't much care for him either, but it seemed as if he had some knowledge about him that she wasn't aware of. "I don't think they'll be back for awhile."

"Good, then there's time." Danny nodded his head, unzipping his flight jacket and tossing it on a nearby chair. "Dani, I think I can help stabilize your ghost half, but I don't know if what I'm going to try is even going to have any effect on you- and I don't know if it's going to make things worse. I think it will work, but I don't want to do it if you don't want me to. If you don't, we'll stay here together and wait for your parents to come home, and I'm sure they can figure something out."

"I can't tell mom and dad about this!" Dani screeched, eyes going wide. "They'll freak!"

Danny shook his head, giving the small girl a sad smile, patting her on the shoulder. "They won't. Maybe a little, but they'll be okay with it. Those are the sort of people that Jack and Maddie are. They'll love you and accept you anyways, Dani, they're good people." He told her, giving her shoulder a squeeze. "You need to tell them about this anyways, or it will only make things more complicated for you in the long run. I promise you that they won't hurt you, and if for some reason they do, I'll stop them, okay?"

Dani hesitated a little, half seeming to want to believe Danny's words. The other half of her, however, was filled with fear, doubt, and worry- all emotions Danny was infinitely familiar with, having gone through the same thing. Well, there were a few things that were different. Namely, the fact that Dani wasn't alone.

"I mean, Jazz doesn't care, right Jazz?" Danny asked, glancing back towards her.

"No." Jazz said, shaking her head. "I'm a little worried, if anything. But I'm fine with this Dani." Jazz reassured her, placing a hand on her other shoulder, before leaning down and giving her sister a big hug from behind. "You're my little sister, and I'll always love you. Nothing will ever change that, and I'm sure it's the same for mom and dad too. Okay?"

"Okay." Dani nodded finally, before looking back at Danny. "I trust you, Danny. You've... been through this before, haven't you? Did you start, you know..." She hesitated, as if not wanting to say it.

"No." Danny shook his head. "I didn't. But our circumstances were different, Dani. I..." He paused, as if suddenly realizing what he was going to say, then forced a sigh from his otherwise useless lungs, shoulders slumping as he sat on the floor next to her. This wasn't the time for lies anymore, he thought. Dani was scared and looking for answers, and he got the feeling that Jazz had already learned way more than he wanted her to anyways- and perhaps far more than she wanted to as well.

"By the time I became half ghost, ectoplasm was already a familiar substance in my blood stream. So when I got a supercharged dose of it merged with me in the Fenton Portal, well... if anything it was just the final push." He began, placing a hand on his head, frowning a little as he anxiously rustled his own messy hair. "I was used to having it in my body, but you... it's a foreign substance to you, and your body is desperately trying to reject it, but at the same time, it's already bonded to you. If we can start giving you filtered doses of it while you're human, I think your body will start to adapt and eventually stop fighting against it, but I really can't be sure about this. It might be better to wait for your parents."

Silence hung in the air for a few moments after Danny stopped speaking, and Dani could feel Jazz's grip on her shoulders tighten a little. It hurt a little, to be honest, but it didn't seem like that was Jazz's intent. A quick glance back up towards her older sister showed that there was clear anger in her eyes, as if she couldn't believe what she had just heard, and as if he had connected some dots that Dani hadn't yet. Why would Danny have ectoplasm in his system in the first place, before he became half ghost? And why wouldn't he want her to know this?

"Why would they do that to you?" Jazz asked after a moment, her whispered, hushed voice barely enough to break the silence.

Danny glanced up, locking eyes with Jazz, a sad, forced smile on his face. "It doesn't matter anymore. What does matter is that it's likely what prevented me from destabilizing, and it's what Dani needs. At the very least, it should tide her over until Jack and Maddie can think of a better idea. But you can't let them know about this. There are... things that you guys shouldn't known about your great great-grandparents." He said quietly, turning his eyes away from them. "And I don't really want to talk about it either."

"Danny..." Jazz began, before catching her younger sister's confused look, and stopped, finally nodding her head. "Okay. But I want to talk to you later, alright? Please, Danny."

"Fine." He said after a moment, before standing up. "That's enough questions about me for now though. Right now, we need to focus on helping Dani." He told them, glancing down at her, and giving her another reassuring smile. Danny turned away from them then, glancing around the lab, eyes darting about as if he was looking for something, or rather, was trying to remember where something was. He'd never thrown them away in the end, thinking that there was an off chance that they might be needed in the future, and he could only hope that they were still good.

It was a small miracle that they were never uncovered in all of the lab renovations that Jack and Maddie did after they first started working out of the old Fenton Works lab. They probably had no idea of half of the things that he'd buried deep underneath the basement of Fenton Works, or deep within the building's walls. Miranda knew about them, though, the hidden things, but she never said anything. She kept her vow not to speak a word about him until the day that she died, and although Danny knew that she never understood why he had asked her to.

The history that the rest of Amity Park remembered today, after all, was much more pleasant than the truth. If such things came to light... well, he was afraid of what effects it might have on Jack and Maddie's reputation, not only as ghost hunters, but as parents. And he didn't want that.

"Ah." Danny said, heading over towards a seemingly empty wall, right by one of the shelving units in the lab. Phasing his head and shoulders through it, he grinned a little, before he pulled out the prize that he sought, an old, banged up cooler. Frowning as he pulled it out, he shifted it in his hands a little, before grumbling, giving up and turning towards Jazz. "Is this thing cool, Jazz? I can't tell." He told her, passing the cooler over to her.

Jazz blinked, taking it from him. Well, she had always sort of suspected that Danny had trouble discerning temperatures- it would explain why he didn't swelter in that jacket in the middle of summer, but she was a little bit surprised that he couldn't seem to tell them at all. Then again, she had to remind herself, she supposed the boy in front of her was technically a corpse.

When she thought about it, it made her shudder a little, and she had to flinch a bit, realizing that it must have shown on her face for a second, because a flash of hurt passed through Danny's eyes, although he quickly hid this. "Yes." Jazz said finally, just wanting to break the silence. "It's still cold." She told him, handing it back to him. "What's in it?" She asked.

"Ectoplasm shots." Danny said, sitting back down next to Dani, cracking it open. Sure enough, there was a metal box inside the cooler, which Danny then opened, revealing several wicked looking syringes of the glowing green substance. Jazz found a shudder running down the length of her spine, wondering what they could have possibly been meant for in the first place, although she had a few guesses. "It should still be good." Danny said, frowning a little, taking one out.

"Do I really need that?" Dani stammered, flinching a little at the size of the needle.

"Do you not want it?" Danny asked, putting it back down, glancing over at her. "If you don't, we don't have to do it. Like I said, it's just a theory, and something to tide you over, and I'm sure your parents can think of something even better." He told her.

"No." Dani swallowed a little, trying to summon her courage. "If you think it's the right thing to do, Danny, then I trust you." She said, before carefully thrusting her arm towards him.

"Alright, good girl." Danny nodded his head, pushing up the girl's sleeve. Pulling one of the needles back out, he quickly found a vein, and got it over with as fast as he could. He remembered how much he hated getting them in the first place, and he'd been much younger than she was now at the time. It had caused a violent reaction in him, but considering that Dani already now had ectoplasm in her system, it shouldn't cause the same reaction in her.

Dani shuddered a little, feeling the contents of the needle rush through her body like a wave of cold, her vision reeling in front of her. But once that cleared up, she felt- strangely better, she thought. She didn't feel so fragile, as if she was going to fall apart at any second. Perhaps it was just Danny's reassurances that it would work convincing her of this, but maybe it was more, perhaps it had done the trick. Frowning a little, she glanced over towards Danny, a hesitant look on her face. "Is that all?"

"Yeah." Danny smiled at her, reaching over to ruffle her hair. "That's all." He said, shutting the metal box and the cooler once more. He phased it through the floor, storing it there, just in time to see Dora float through the ceiling.

"The Fentons are coming. Danny, do you want to clear out of here?" Dora asked him, before glancing at Dani, hesitating a little, as if wondering if the little girl was alright. She looked so much like Danny, she thought, and that made her heart flutter with worry, recalling what the boy's own family situation had been like, and his deep rooted fears of his parents ever finding out what he had become- fears that had later proven to be very sensible, it seemed, although he never spoke about what happened.

"No, I think I'll stay for this." Danny said after a moment. "After all, I did make a promise to Dani." He said, smiling at her a little. "Just... we're not telling any of my secrets here, okay?" He told them, putting a finger to his lips. "Dora, you should probably make yourself scarce though, just in case." He advised her, glancing towards the ghost woman, who gave him a short nod, following his advice. Not long after she did, the front door to the house open.

"Let's go talk to them upstairs, okay?" He asked, kneeling down in front of Dani, grinning as he let her climb on his back. She flushed a little at this, but to be honest, she wasn't sure she trusted her legs at the moment.

"Dani? Jazz!" Maddie called out from upstairs. "Are you home? We picked up some cake from the bakery on the way back! They were having a sale on fudge, so I thought I should buy us something to while your father scoped everything out!"

"We're home, mom!" Jazz called out, going ahead of Danny and Dani. She poked her head out into the living room first, aware of probably how frazzled she looked. Her mother quickly caught notice of it, although her father seemed to be busy at the moment, marveling over all of the fudge he'd bought- fudge which would probably all be gone by this time tomorrow, she noted.

"Jazz honey, is something wrong?" Maddie blinked, then froze when she saw Danny carrying her youngest daughter out of the lab. "Danny! When did you come over? Normally you don't come here without Sam." She noted, then frowned a little. "Is everything okay? All three of you seem a little frazzled at the moment."

"We need to talk, mom." Jazz said, heading over towards them. "You too, dad, put the fudge away for a moment, because we need you to concentrate."

Sensing that something serious had happened, Jack pulled his attention away from the fudge, frowning a little as Danny carefully placed Dani down on the couch. "Is something wrong with Dani?" He asked, taking a seat next to his daughter, placing a hand on her forehead, wondering if she was sick. She was just fine when they had left not long ago, but now that he felt her forehead, it seemed like she was rather cold, instead of being hot, as he had expected. "Maddie, I think Dani's sick. We should probably pull the Fenton RV around and take her to the hospital."

"A hospital probably wouldn't be the best idea." Danny interjected, breaking the awkward silence that hung for a second between the two teenage girls. "Oh, sorry." He forced himself to cough a little, scratching the back of his head. "I was in the neighborhood and I saw the power go out in Fenton Works, so I thought I would stop by and see if everything was okay." He told them, frowning a little. "And then I kind of walked in on..."

"I got caught in the Fenton Portal." Dani cut in, clenching her fists, forcing herself to take in and let out a deep breath. She could do this, it would be okay, Danny had promised her it would be okay.

"Caught in the..." Maddie gasped, her eyes suddenly filled with worry as she hurried over towards Dani. "Oh, Dani, honey, you're not hurt, are you?" She asked, placing her hands on her shoulders. So cold! She thought, frowning a little, feeling almost as this sensation of cold was vaguely familiar- but no, her daughter was much warmer still than Phantom.

...Or Danny, now that she thought about it, her gaze briefly flickering over towards the boy, who had always looked a bit too much like her daughter for her to be quite at ease with.

"I'm not hurt." Dani said, shaking her head, frowning a little. "But I do think it did something to me." She told them, and for all of Danny and Jazz's reassurances, she found herself looking away. She would show them, she would transform again, as scary as that was- surely if she just did the opposite of what she did to become human again, she would turn back into a ghost.

But then she paused, for a moment realizing that might be a bad idea. She knew she already looked like Danny when they were both human, so she had a sneaking suspicion that she looked just like him when he was Phantom as well. And she was only talking about her secrets- or well, her new 'secret', and not any of Danny's, and she knew her mother was smart and that she might piece things together and...

"Did what?" Maddie implored, gently prodding her to continue, her heart pounding in her chest. She could feel Dani's heartbeat in the girl's chest, so she knew that she was still alive, she hadn't died or anything horrifying like that. But still, she was so cold, and Maddie knew that something must have been wrong.

And why did she get the feeling that Danny knew more about what was going on here than anyone else did?

"Um." Dani hesitated, wondering how best to break the news. She felt a reassuring hand on her head then, and she glanced up, looking at Danny, who gave her a small smile, and a nod, as if saying that it was okay. He had gotten this far on coincidence, after all, he'd manage somehow.

Besides, if his secret getting exposed to the Fentons was a consequence of Dani not having to go through the same fear, suffering, and paranoia that he did, it was a small price to pay.

"Okay." Dani took a deep breath. "Please, just listen to me after I do this, okay? Because I think I might really need your help." She whispered the last part, but from the way her parents exchanged glances, she knew that they had heard her, loud and clear. Closing her eyes, she tried to concentrate on the cold that she could feel inside of her now, and tried to let it consume her, washing over her in a rush of cold. When she felt her mother let go over her shoulders and gasp, she knew that it had worked, and she peeked one green eye open.

"I'm still me though." She whispered, averting her eyes from them again- and it was this action, more than anything, that prompted Jack and Maddie to glance between themselves. They might not know what was going on right at the moment, but they did know one thing. Their daughter was desperately afraid that they would reject her right now, and they couldn't stand that.

"We know." Jack said it first, leaning down to scoop his daughter up in a tight embrace. She was colder, and lighter than before he noted, and he tried to ignore the ghostly glow and the sudden lack of the heartbeat that she had just seconds ago. Maddie quickly joined in, wrapping her arms around both Jack and Dani, holding them both tightly. "It's okay, Dani. We'll work this out together, what's happening to you. We promise."

"Your father's right." Maddie echoed, smiling at her daughter as Jack finally put her down, and she leaned down in front of her, rest her hands on Dani's. "We love you, Dani. Your father and I would never reject you, no matter what." She told her, grasping her daughter's hands in her own. "Do you want to talk about what happened, honey? After the Fenton Portal turned on."

Dani nodded slowly. "Yeah." She whispered, and in another flash of light, she turned human again, still worried that she would start to dissolve once more. She hadn't felt like she was going to when she changed the second time, so maybe that stuff Danny had given her worked after all. She still didn't know where it had come from in the first place, though, or what it was even doing hidden in the walls of Fenton Works, though.

Danny wasn't telling her a lot of things, was he?

"I ended up in there by accident when the power blew out. I was looking for a flashlight." She said. "And then all of a sudden, the power came back on, and I was still in the portal, but when I tried to get out... my foot got caught in the wire. And I was trapped, and it turned on when I was inside of it." She told them, frowning a little, shuddering at the mere memory. "It hurt. It hurt a lot, I felt like I was going to die... and-" She frowned, thinking how best to put this without giving away that she had prior knowledge of such a thing being able to happen. "...and I think I did. Halfway at least. Um, I think... I think I might be part ghost."

"Part..." Maddie began, frowning a little, puzzlement clear on her face. "Dani, I don't think that's possible."

"Well, I'm alive right now, aren't I?" She asked, quirking a brow. "And I... wasn't just a second ago." She said, frowning a little, rubbing her arm. "I really don't know of any other way to put it, to be honest mom. Maybe your research has been wrong."

"It could be, Maddie." Jack spoke up, glancing at his wife. "Science has been proven wrong in the past. Perhaps we missed something."

"See, Dani?" Jazz spoke up, smiling at her sister. "I told you everything would be just fine. Mom and dad can help you." She told her. "I think I should be the one to say this, because I think Dani's still a little frightened herself." She told them, and her parents cast their glances towards her. "Dani started to dissolve for a few moments." She said. "Until she managed to turn human again, and that seemed to reset everything. We don't think her ghost form is stable, and I think she needs your help."

Maddie nodded her head, the scientific part of her mind already churning away, working at possible reasons for all this, possible solutions, ways to help her daughter. "Don't worry, Dani." She said again, turning back towards her daughter. "We will help you, with everything, I promise. We'll probably need to take a few samples." She began, and then gave her a gentle smile when she flinched- and oddly enough, out of the corner of her eye, she noticed Danny flinch too. "Just samples, honey, no different than what you get taken at the doctor's office for a physical. Your father and I would never dream of hurting you."

"Thank you." Dani said, softly smiling at her parents. "To you too." She said, looking over at Jazz, and then finally to Danny, smiling the most brightly at him. He was the one who told her it would be okay, after all. "And you too, Danny. Thank you."

"Oh yes, that's right, that reminds me, Danny." Maddie's gaze turned towards him, and the boy quickly averted her gaze from her, causing Maddie to frown a little. "Please keep this a secret. We don't want other people to learn about whatever might have happened to our daughter. If the wrong sort of people got wind of it... well, I don't want anyone touching my little baby girl."

"Oh, not a word of it, Mrs. Fenton, I promise." Danny said, holding up his hands, smiling at her. "I won't even tell Sam. Cross my heart and hope to die." He told her, a strange chuckle punctuating the end of his words, as if the thought of himself dying was somehow funny to him.

Maddie Fenton had never been a stupid woman, and she knew that there were dots just waiting to be connected here. She hadn't missed her daughter's shocking resemblance to Phantom when she had... become a ghost, nor had she missed how she had almost been looking to Danny for the most reassurance, as if again, he knew more than the rest of them as to what was going on. She blinked a little then, as if only now just realizing that perhaps this was the first time she had ever seen him without his usual aviator jacket, and she couldn't help but note that the bandages were far more extensive than she ever could imagine.

She'd talked to Mr. Lancer, not long ago, and when he had finally gotten back to her, the man had been visibly shaken, only able to tell her that 'it was worse than they thought' and that 'Daniel didn't just need therapy- he probably needed serious medical help'. "Can we... talk?" Maddie said after a moment, almost hesitating. For the strangest reason, she had felt that for a second, she was brushing up against something that she didn't want to know about.

"Can it wait?" Danny cringed a little, suddenly remembering that he had left his jacket downstairs, and knew full well what Maddie was looking at, and he didn't like it. In the background, he could hear Jazz grumble as if she felt she was going to be cheated out of their chat now too. "It's late, and it is kind of a school night, so..."

"Oh, yes." Maddie blinked a little. "But I want to talk to you when school lets out tomorrow. Oh yes, while we're on the subject, could you please tell Mr. Lancer to excuse Jazz and Dani tomorrow? I want both of them here while we look into this matter."

"Oh yeah, sure, no problem Mrs. Fenton." Danny nodded his head, grinning a little. "Well, if that's all, I'm going to go get my jacket, and I'll bid you all a good night. And Dani, don't worry, I'm sure you'll be fine. If you have an emergency, you can give me a call, okay? I'll come right over."

"Okay." Dani smiled at him, nodding her head. She felt better already, to be honest, knowing that she still had her parent's love and affection. "I'll see you tomorrow, Danny."

"Yeah." He smiled at her, before heading down towards the lab, grabbing his jacket. It was back on by the time he got back upstairs, and he bid the rest of the Fenton family a fond farewell, before heading off into the night.

This would no doubt provide him with some problems. He was going to have to teach Dani how to use her powers, and protect her from Vlad, who would no doubt see her as easy pickings- as would other ghosts, namely Skulker.

But he thought he was up to the task.

* * *

_"Finally!"_ Star grumbled, collapsing into her desk chair, leaning back in it. She had planned to come home straight after school to watch the data disc that she had gotten from the box, but before she knew it, she had been pulled aside by Paulina and was forced to go to some sort of dumb A-List event where they did almost nothing but stand around and talk. Her feet were screaming at her from being on them for so long, and she had to wonder how Paulina didn't feel the pain.

Yawning loudly, Star grabbed the can of soda she pulled from the fridge downstairs, popping it open, before she pulled the data disc from her bag, setting the old laptop she had gotten from Tucker aside. Pulling out the power charger, she set it up, plugging it into her outlet, noting that Tucker must have adjusted it to work on modern outlets. Plugging it into the laptop, she booted it up, grabbing some headphones from her desk and plugging those in as well. While waiting for it to load- wow did this thing take forever- she made her way over to her door, making sure that it was locked, and that nobody would bother her.

"Right." She said, taking a seat, putting her headphones in, grinning as she pulled out the data disc. When the computer seemed to be booted up, she inserted the disc into what looked to be the drive, and grinned when it started up. It seemed to be some kind of video file, as it booted up a movie player. She'd been right to put the headphones in then, she didn't want her parents to overhear anything that she was looking into.

The screen crackled a little, and Star got the feeling that this had been transferred onto this disc from somewhere else. Eventually, a picture came up, and she was greeted by Sidney Poindexter's face, which she recalled from the photograph- or at least, who she had assumed was Sidney Poindexter. The quality of the video wasn't all that great, but she could still make people out, and the sound was more than understandable.

_"Hey there, students of Casper High! As you know, I'm on the yearbook committee this year, and I thought it would be neat to compile a bunch of short interviews from graduating seniors, such as myself, talking about what they plan to do after high school. So without further ado, let's go find some seniors to talk to!"_

The video shifted then, and she guessed Sidney was moving, walking down the hall. Taking a sip of her soda, she set it aside for the moment. What would this bring her, she wondered?

_"Candi!" Sidney called out, focusing the video on a black haired girl, her hair worn in tight curls, who looked startled when she was called out to. _

She was very pretty, Star thought, quickly pegging her as one of the A Listers from the past.

_"Oh, sorry, Poindexter, right?" She said, glancing at the camera. "What's with the camera?"_

_"Interviews! What do you plan to do when you graduate from here, Candi?" Sidney asked, shifting the camera a little bit, and it zoomed in on the girl's face._

_"Ugh, if I graduate. Did you know we had to do community service hours? Nobody told me, and now I have a month to make them all up! How am I ever going to get that done in time?" She asked, groaning a little._

_"Well you could always go talk to the teachers, and see if they need any help, I'm sure they would give you some hours for it." Sidney said. "I hear Miss Spencer is looking for someone to do her filing for her."_

_"Great! I'll start there!" Candi said, shutting her locker, and getting ready to dart off. "Oh right, before I forget, I want to go on the be a model. But not one of those dumb ones, I'm going to go to college. I don't know what I want to major in yet... maybe French! The language of love and all that. Maybe I'll go to Paris and chat with some cute boys!"_

_"Good luck with that?" Sidney said, a note of hesitation on his voice. "I guess that's a goal." He could be heard muttering as Candi hurried out of view, before heading on with his camera, stopping in front of a girl with fiery red hair, worn in a messy, wild ponytail, who had a punk rock vibe to her._

_"Amber! What about you? What are you doing when you graduate Casper High?" Sidney asked, although he seemed to cringe a little when the girl wheeled on him, glowering at the camera._

_"What do you think, dipstick?" She said, arching an eyebrow. "If all goes well during this Saturday's concert, I might very well be set in the music business for life. I'm going to take it by storm, you hear me? In a few months, you'll hear people all across the country chanting my name." She grumbled a little, placing her hands on her hips. "That is if Phantom doesn't end up breaking up my concert again with his dumb ghost fights. I'm getting real sick of that asshole."_

_"I'm sure he doesn't do it on purpose." Sidney pointed out, and yelped a little when Amber raised a fist at him, quickly deciding to make himself scarce. "You think she'd be a little nicer in front of a camera, geez."_

_"Sarah!" Sidney called out then, hurrying up to another girl. _With her short, blonde hair in a bob cut and her deep blue eyes, Star instantly recognized this one. She'd seen her in photos before, this was her great grandmother! Oh wow, they really did look sort of alike. _"Sarah, for the yearbook video, what are you planning to do out of high school?"_

_"Me?" Sarah laughed a little, rolling her eyes. "Isn't it obvious? As soon as I'm done with college- and probably before, if I can make the right connections, I'm going to become a newspaper photographer. I'm going to snap pictures of moments that are going to define history for years to come!"_

_"Speaking of college, you're going to scope some out, aren't you?" Sidney asked._

_"How do you know that, dweeb?" She asked, frowning a little at him. "Ew, you haven't been spying on me, have you?"_

_"No!" Sidney said quickly. "I just overheard you talking to Candi about it at lunch, that's all." He said._

_"Yeah, I'm heading out later today." Sarah said, shrugging her shoulders, though it didn't seem she could hide her excitement. "It's my first time going on a trip all on my own, so I'm going to prove to my paranoid parents that I can handle living on my own in the dorms. They'll be so proud of me when I come back home, they'll never question by abilities again!"_

A cold shiver ran through Star's spine then, as it suddenly dawned on her that this must have been recorded just days before the Great Amity Park Fire broke out. Her great grandmother, Sarah, wouldn't have any parents- or even a home- to return to.

_"Have fun!" Sidney said, before heading on down the hall. He paused when he came to a short, blonde haired girl, her hair pulled into a ponytail. "Oh, hey Miranda, have you seen your brother around today?"_

_"Sidney!" The girl said, then shook her head. "No. He's around though, somewhere. He dropped me off at school at least, so I assume he's still here." She told him, shrugging her shoulders. "What are you doing?"_

_"Oh, video log thing for the yearbook. I wanted to talk to Danny too." Sidney told her. "How are things going at home?" He asked, and there was an unmistakable note of concern on his voice._

_"Oh." Miranda's smile fell then, and her expression became closed, withdrawn. "Mom and dad are working on an invention that they say will let them catch Phantom for good. They call it an Exoskeleton or something. I don't like it." She said, shaking her head._

_"Oh, that sounds troubling." Sidney frowned a little. "I'll keep looking for Danny, then. I'll see you later, Miranda." He said, before moving on. Stopping in front of an office, Sidney knocked on the door, shifting on his feet a little before he heard someone call out for him to come in._

_"Miss Spencer! Oh, hey Candi." He said again, greeting the black haired girl once more, before the camera focused on the woman sitting on the desk._

And Star spat out the soda she was drinking, because she was a dead ringer for the new student counselor that Casper High had just gotten, Penelope Spectra. In fact, if Star didn't know any better, she could swear that they were the same person.

_"What brings you here, Mr. Poindexter?" Miss Spencer asked, smiling placidly at him._

_"I wanted to see if you had any words to leave on video to the graduating class. The head of the yearbook committee asked me to." Sidney said, and there was a hint of annoyance on his voice that suggested that he really didn't want to._

_"Ah." Spencer arched her eyebrows, smiling at him. "Hm, yes, if there's anything, I would say to always know the importance of a backup plan. You never know when unforeseen circumstances might arise and crush your original dream into dust- or at the very least, push it back for awhile. You have to be careful out there in the real world, after all!"_

_"Right." Sidney said shortly, not seeming to think much of her phrasing. "Okay then, thank you, Miss Spencer." He said, nodding his head and heading out of the room. "When she says it like that it sounds like she actually expects our dreams to be crushed to dust." He mumbled. He quickly seemed to perk up, however, spotting the one person he seemed to be actively seeking out._

_"Danny!" Sidney called out, approaching the boy. The other boy seemed to tower over Sidney, and his shaggy black hair looked like he'd forgotten to brush it for weeks._ _There was a bandage around the length of his bare right arm, and a nasty bruise forming on his left shoulder._

But what struck Star the most was how utterly dead his eyes looked, as if there wasn't a single spark of life in them. She... didn't know that face on the Danny Fenton she knew at all, and it was more than a little jarring.

_"Poindexter." Danny noted, frowning a little. "What's with the camera?" He asked, glancing down at it._

_"Video log!" Sidney told him. "For the yearbook. What future plans do you have?" He asked._

_The question seemed to hit a nerve, and Danny frowned, a flicker of emotion crossing his face. "I don't really have a future." He admitted, shrugging his shoulders. "I guess I'm staying here, in Amity Park, and following after my parent's footsteps. I don't have much of a choice in the matter."_

_"Oh." Sidney frowned a little. "But... I mean, what would you like to do?" He asked._

_"...A pilot." Danny admitted after a moment. "Or an astronaut. Either one would be great, but they're impossible for me now." He shrugged his shoulders._

_"Oh." Sidney said again, before sighing. "I'm sorry about that, Danny. Um... I heard your parents are working on something to catch Phantom though."_

_"Huh? Yeah, some kind of weird suit of armor or something." Danny shrugged his shoulders. An annoyed look crossed his face then, and a blue mist escaped from his lips. "Goddamn it, not again." He mumbled. "Sorry Poindexter, I've got to go."_

_"Oh, okay, wouldn't want to hold you up! See you later, Danny!" Sidney called out, although the camera followed Danny as he headed down the hall. Just as he went off screen, an alarm bell rang through the hall, declaring that there was a ghost alert and that students were supposed to report to their respective safe zones. "...Good luck."_

The video cut off abruptly there, and Star frowned, taking out her headphones, leaning back in her chair. She got a feeling that she had just seen the last few minutes of Danny Fenton's freedom, and she didn't know how she was supposed to feel about it. She'd never cared about him before, except to feel annoyed when he backed up the Manson girl, and yet...

She felt kind of sorry for him, to be honest. He looked like he had been through hell.

Well, she thought, frowning a little as she pulled out the data disc. Maybe she could try to be a _little _nicer to him in the future.

After all, he was a hero or something, right? He'd earned that much.

Although... there was one other thing about the video file that troubled her.

"What the hell is up with Miss Spencer and Penelope Spectra?"


	12. Scars of the Body

Author's Note: Chapter Twelve is here at last! First of all, we've now hit one hundred reviews for this story, so I want to take a moment to think each and every one of you who has reviewed this in the past- and to remind you guys not to be shy about reviewing! I want to hear your thoughts and feedback, no matter how silly you might think they are. Don't be shy, I don't bite!

Danny Phantom does not belong to me.

* * *

**The Once and Future Phantom**

Chapter Twelve: Scars of the Body

* * *

"Any reason _why _this little get together couldn't wait until tomorrow morning?" Tucker let out a tired yawn, barely able to keep his eyes open. Danny had shaken him awake at nearly one in the morning, and he was only vaguely surprised to find that Sam was in tow with him, looking equally as exhausted, but far less annoyed at being dragged out of her bed so early in the morning. It wasn't the first time that Danny had done something like this, and Tucker doubted it would be the last. He guessed when you didn't need to sleep, other people's sleep schedules meant almost nothing to you.

"Nope, not a chance. Too much has happened all in one day." Danny said, shaking his head, grabbing himself a chair and taking a seat in it. "It's important that we discuss everything right now, because I don't know if we're going to get another chance. To be honest, I don't even know where to begin."

"Start with the most pressing thing." Sam said, yawning a little. "And go down from there. You seem more than a little frantic, Danny."

"I _feel _pretty damn frantic." He admitted, rubbing his forehead. "Right, first things first though. You guys remember what I told you about Pariah Dark right? The Ghost King?" He asked them, glancing between the two.

"That's the ghost who destroyed Amity Park one hundred years ago, isn't it?" Tucker asked, pulling himself to a sitting position, grabbing his glasses from his nightstand. "What about him? He's... not coming back, is he?"

"No. At least, I don't know yet." Danny said. "Someone stole the key to his sarcophagus, and I think it was Vlad."

"The mayor who, as it turns out, is a half ghost, same as you?" Tucker asked. He was more than a little shocked when Sam and Danny told the story to him, about what had happened that night at the party, and what Vlad Master's true nature was. "What does he want with the Ghost King? I thought he was a little smarter than releasing an all powerful ghost entity."

"I don't think releasing the Ghost King is his goal, most likely he wants his artifacts of power." Danny told them. "The Crown of Fire and the Ring of Rage. Of course, the latter isn't sealed with him anymore, and I gave Vlad the bait that this was the case- if something comes after me trying to find it, I'll know for sure that it was him who took the key, at any rate."

"So he wants to gain these artifacts of power to make himself stronger?" Sam asked. "Is he that bent out of shape by you beating him?"

"No, somehow I think he had something like this in his plans for awhile." Danny told her. "I think there's a bit more to his game than just killing Jack so that he could marry Maddie, but I can't really say for sure exactly what he's up to. He does seem to be aware at least that he'll need the artifacts of power in order to beat me though. Still, considering that I've still got no idea as to how Pariah got out the last time, I'm not willing to take my chances."

Sam nodded her head. "Is that all? It seems like there was a good bit more that you wanted to tell us, Danny." She said softly, glancing over towards her boyfriend.

"Yeah." He nodded his head. "You remember how I told you two how I got my powers in the first place right? The accident with the Portal, all those years ago?" He asked them, and when they both nodded he frowned a little. "You know how Dani always seemed to want powers like mine? Well, let's just say that she got her wish." He told them. "She got caught in it by accident, during a blackout. I've told them before that they should really just rewire the whole house, but _no_." Danny rolled his eyes.

"Is she okay?" Sam asked, a hint of worry to her voice. "Do her parents know?"

"Her parents know. And they're okay with it." Danny assured her, a hint of a sad, slightly bitter smile on his face. "They're going to help her get through it, and they don't plan on telling anyone about it. Technically, they swore me to secrecy, so you probably shouldn't breathe a word of this to them, okay? As for Dani being okay..." He frowned, trailing off a little as he placed his hand on his forehead, his brow creasing with worry. "I don't know. Her ghost form's not stable. I saw her slowly start to dissolve into ectoplasm in front of me and I- I don't know what to do about it."

Tucker and Sam both cringed at that. Dani was their friend too, and neither of them wanted to see her in danger. "Is she in immediate danger?" Tucker asked him.

"No, I think it's triggered by her powers. As long as she doesn't use them and remains in her human form, she _should _be fine for now." Danny told them, shaking his head. "I think if Jack and Maddie put their heads together, they'll be able to figure something out, and I'm pretty sure that knowing them, neither of them will quit before they come up with a solution. I think she'll pull through. I considered trying to help her and use the method which I think lead to my ghost half's stability but..." He frowned, glancing down at his hands. "I don't want to risk that being what caused me to end up like _this_." He told them, frowning slightly.

"Carting around your own corpse?" Sam asked bluntly, echoing Skulker's earlier words.

"Yeah." Danny said shortly, nodding his head. "That."

"She's not freaking out too bad, is she?" Tucker asked. "We should pay her a visit after you get out of school tomorrow, Sam." He told his friend, to which she agreed, nodding her head.

"She's holding out." Danny told them, a hint of a smile gracing his face. "She's a trooper. She's got her family's support after all, and that probably helps a lot. I think as long as she can get the stability issue sorted out that she'll be fine. What I am worried about is people like Vlad finding out about her, or even Skulker."

"Vlad would try and use her." Sam said, frowning deeply. "We have to make sure that he doesn't learn about this. Do you think her folks would tell him?"

"No." Danny said, shaking his head. "I don't think so."

"Good." Tucker nodded his head, leaning back against the wall, frowning deeply. "If Phantom can help Dani with her powers, I'm sure that would help a lot. But then again I guess Phantom's technically not supposed to know that something has happened to Dani, huh?"

"Yeah, that's true. But that's the third thing I want to bring up. The first thing is that Jazz has been snooping around even though I told her _not to_." Danny hissed a little, his eyes briefly flashing green, before returning to their normal blue. "I think she's pretty much more or less figured out that we're related, to say the least. And I think she has a pretty good idea of... other things." He frowned. "Dani still seems to be in the dark though."

"And I think Maddie is starting to suspect there's a connection between me and Phantom which of course, there is." He forced a sigh from his lungs, scratching his head in frustration. "All I want is to just try and live a normal teenage life for once, maybe get a chance to graduate from high school. Is that really too much for me to ask for?" He asked them, his eyes pleading. "I never had the chance while I was actually _alive _after all. Or well, half-alive."

"No, it's not too much to ask." Sam said, placing a gentle hand on his shoulder, shaking her head. "You could just try and avoid her, you know. You don't have to force yourself to talk to her."

"Yes I do." Danny frowned. "Dani needs help, and she needs me to be there. I can't just leave her alone because I'm worried about her mother learning secrets about me. It's just... I don't even mind them learning about me, specifically, it's the other things I don't want them to find out about. I mean, Jack idealizes his great grandparents so much, how am I supposed to tell him that they were monsters?"

"It's okay, Danny. You'll work something out." Sam told him, grabbing his hand and giving it a tight squeeze. He smiled at her, ignoring the slight gagging sound that Tucker made in the background to let them both know that he was 'still here'. "I'll have your back, at any rate. If anyone has a problem with you, they'll have to go through me first. You know I don't care what anyone else thinks about us. I'd date you in the open still even if people knew about you." She told him.

"I know." Danny smiled at her. "That's what makes you so great, Sam." He told her, leaning over to kiss her lightly on the lips.

"Hey, I'd have your back too, you know!" Tucker said, frowning at the two of them. "I thought we went over this before, you two- no mushy stuff in front of Tucker. You can take your little teen novel romance elsewhere."

"Sorry." Danny said, a sheepish grin on his face. He would blush, if he could. "That said, I do need to talk to Sam though, in private." He told her, standing up. "Tucker, you can get back to sleep if you like."

"I will take you up on that offer. Now get out of my room already, you bums." Tucker said, waving his hand at them as he collapsed back under his sheets. Sam and Danny exchanged brief glances, chuckling a little to each other, before they left their friend alone. Danny escorted Sam into his own room, lending her a hand as she was still limping a little.

"You had that serious look on your face." Sam noted as they phased through his door, glancing up at him. "I know what that look means. There's something on your mind, isn't there?"

"You always _could _see right through me." Danny told her, giving her a small grin, helping her sit on his bed, not wanting Sam to stand on her injured leg for any longer than needed. "There is." He told her, unzipping his aviator jacket, tossing it aside on his bed. Sam smiled, catching it and pulling it a bit close to her, her hands crinkling around the fabric of the jacket. It was something that she had bought for him, a present for entering Casper High School with her. He had actually cried when she had given it to him- apparently, Danny was accustomed to getting presents.

"Does it have anything to do with the fact that Mr. Lancer looked like a war torn veteran earlier today?" Sam asked him, setting aside his jacket. "You showed him, didn't you? A little of it, anyways." She said, casting her eyes towards the myriad of bandages that wrapped around Danny's upper body, which she knew continued down to his lower half as well. She used to joke a little that he was like a mummy, until she had began to suspect the severity of what it was that they hid from sight.

"I think I'm going to be getting other demands about them soon." Danny told her, placing a hand over one arm, frowning deeply. "I don't want anyone to see them you know." He told her. "But you're different. I think you should, if you want to. I mean," he gave her a sad smile, pain very visible in his eyes. "It's not exactly _pretty _underneath these. This body is actually pretty disgusting, I won't lie to you Sam."

"I don't care what you look like, Danny." Sam said softly, locking eyes with him. "You know that. I love what's inside of you."

"What, my internal organs?" Danny asked, grinning a little at her, unable to help himself. He didn't feel the need to tell her that a couple of said organs were actually sitting in jars buried deep underneath the Fenton Works lab. Some things, after all, were better unsaid. "But I don't want anyone to know what happened to me before _you_. And I think people will be asking, and asking soon. Do you... want to see? I mean, I could understand if you don't. It's not _exactly _for the faint hearted."

"Show me." Sam whispered, giving him a gentle smile. "It's okay, Danny. I know you've gone through some horrible things, and I've always been ready to hear you out about them, if you wanted to talk about them." She said. "I want to know. I want to know, even if you think it's disgusting."

Danny slowly nodded his head, pulling off his tank top, tossing it aside. Slowly he began to work on unwinding the bandages on his arms, and even as he did so, he could hear Sam's sharp intake of breath as the things that were hidden underneath them came into view. But she never asked him to stop, so he kept going, first unwinding the bandages around his left arm. The burn scars that traveled up it were more extensive than anywhere else on his body, leaving almost no trace of his actual flesh behind. His elbow joint was almost entirely exposed, and while that caused Sam to flinch a little, she didn't look away. Nor did she look away when he unwound the bandage on his right arm, exposing the burned flesh underneath it, although it was not so severe as his other one.

He hesitated a little over his chest, before slowly unwinding the bandages around his torso. Here he did hear Sam let out a small gasp, even though visually speaking, what scarring he had hear wasn't nearly as bad as anywhere else. But rather, it was the nature of the scars themselves, namely the large one that covered most of his chest, in a very distinct, surgical Y-shape that could only be taken as one thing.

"They..." Sam's breath caught in her throat, shaking a little. She had expected something awful to be sure, but she hadn't... she hadn't expected it to have gone this far. "They _vivisected _you?"

Danny placed a hand over the scars on his chest, slowly nodding his head. "Yeah." He said simply, giving her a pained smile, trying to still put on a good face, even as terrible memories were dredged up. "They did it while I was human, too." He gave her a bitter chuckle, shaking his head. "I guess at that point, it didn't matter to them anymore that I was their son they just... didn't care now that they knew I had become half ghost. I wasn't their son anymore to them, they acted like they never had a son to begin with." He said, slowly shaking his head.

"And I hated them for it, Sam. I hated them _so much_." He told her, clenching his hands into fists. "Even though I always tried not to."

"Danny, _anyone _would." Sam told him, getting to her feet, ignoring the throbbing in her leg, carefully reaching out and placing a hand over his chest. Danny was right, it really wasn't pretty underneath the bandages- he really _was _just a walking corpse in 'human' form after all, although she forgot this sometimes. It didn't really matter to her anyways, it never really had- she loved Danny for who he was, even if he wasn't technically alive anymore, and she didn't care what anyone thought of that. Even if the whole world knew that Sam Manson was in love with a dead boy, in love with a ghost, she wouldn't surrender her feelings to anyone.

Danny always seemed to assume that eventually she would move on from him, once she grew older, but she knew that wouldn't be the case. For better or worse, she had fallen in love with Phantom- with _Danny_- and she would likely remain in love with him until the end of her days.

"Yeah well, I'm not just anyone." Danny mumbled, resting his chin on Sam's head. "I have to be _better _than that, Sam."

"Danny, if it took that much for you to finally hate your parents, then you are already a better person than nearly the entire world. Nobody is asking you to be a saint." She told him. "Everyone has flaws and things that they don't like about themselves. You don't need to hold yourself to such a high standard. It's not doing you any favors. It's okay for you to get angry at people, and it's okay for you to hate people, even. Nobody's going to blame you for it, and if they do, it's probably because they're full of shit."

"I know." Danny said, smiling a little, pulling away from her a bit. "You're right, I know that much, I really do. Sometimes it's a bit hard for me to accept that, though." He told her, stepping away. "You're really not disgusted by all of this?"

"A little." Sam admitted after a moment. "I won't lie to you Danny, it does make me a little nauseous. But your scars aren't you." She told him, reaching out and taking one of his hands in her own, even though touching the burnt flesh made her almost want to recoil. She could see bone glistening through in several places, and she knew were Danny still living, he wouldn't be able to use his arms at all, likely all of his nerves ending had burned away. She knew it was why he only had the faintest sense of touch in his hands, and couldn't tell temperatures from each other. It was different in his ghost form, she knew, and sometimes she thought she was being selfish by making him stay in human form.

But she also knew that their whole little 'get Danny into Casper High as a student' plot had started because Danny had honestly wanted something he could have never had while he was human- a normal, teenage life. Where he could go to school, date, hang out with his friends, and most importantly, gradate. He wanted to make memories, some good memories of being 'human' to balance out the ones he had from his actual human life. And she couldn't blame him, not at all. Were she in his shoes, she would do the same.

Actually, to be honest, were she in Danny's shoes, she would have probably broken a long, long time ago, well before she would have even had the chance to become half ghost. She honestly didn't even know how he had managed to do it, how he had managed to get through everything he had been put through, and yet still wanted to be the kind of person who would help people, to save people who were in trouble. Maybe that's why she was so deeply in love with him- because he was good, and noble, even when the entire world seemed like it was against him, even when he had no reason to want to help people.

Danny snatched his hand away from Sam pretty much instantly, all but hiding it behind his back. "Sorry." He whispered, glancing away from her. "But thank you, Sam. That means a lot to me. I don't think I won't ever be disgusted by this, though." He admitted to her. "Are you okay even with that?"

"Yes." Sam said, nodding her head, ignoring the throbbing in her legs again as she stood on her tip toes, kissing him on the lips again. "I'm okay with it all, Danny. I'll accept you for everything that you are." She told him, resting her head on the center of his chest. "Burns, scars and all."

There was a flash of brilliant light behind her closed eyelids, and when he wrapped his arms around her, she knew that he had become Phantom, not wanting to touch her, it seemed, with those bare hands. "Thank you for being honest with me, Danny." She told him, peering up into his now green eyes. "That means a lot to me, really it does. I thought you would never start opening up to me about certain things."

"I figured there were enough people prying into uncomfortable parts of my past, so there ought to be someone I tell myself." Phantom said, kissing her lightly on the forehead. "Come on though, we should get you home. Tomorrow's a school day, you'll need your rest." He said, scooping her up in his arms.

"Are you sure I couldn't just stay here?" Sam asked slyly, a hint of a wry grin on her face.

"As charming an idea as that is, I'm _pretty _sure that if your parents found out, they would find a way to bring me back to life just so they could kill me again." Danny told her, quirking a brow. "And dying twice sounds rather unpleasant."

"Suit yourself then, spoilsport." Sam teased, leaning into his chest a little, closing her eyes as he phased through the wall of his room, flying them away from the apartment complex. She really just wanted times like these to stretch on for forever, to never end.

She had a feeling that Danny felt the same way as well.

* * *

"Mr. Fenton, a moment, please."

Mr. Lancer's voice made Danny let out an audible groan, as blue eyes gazed across the classroom towards the balding teacher. When he hadn't said anything to him for the entire school day, Danny thought that he was home free of the teacher's meddling- but it seemed as if he wasn't. Really, he didn't have _time _for this, he was too worried about what was going on with Dani. He had stopped by to check in on her that morning, but she had been fast asleep, and he didn't want to wake her.

"Go on ahead to the Fentons without me, then." Danny said, glancing over towards Sam. "Give Tucker a call and tell him to meet you there."

"Are you sure you'll be okay?" Sam asked, placing a hand over one arm, glancing down at him. He had told her about his earlier conversation with Mr. Lancer, and she didn't want the teacher to accidentally ruin what it was that they were doing here with his well meaning prying.

"Yeah, I'll be okay." Danny said, grinning at her. "Will your leg be alright?" He asked, glancing down towards it.

"It'll be just fine. It's hurting a lot less already." Sam assured him. "I'll meet you at Dani's then, okay?" She told him, kissing the top of his head before she limped over towards the door, nodding her head at Mr. Lancer before she left.

Getting up from his desk, Danny grabbed his bag, slinging it over one shoulder before he walked over towards Mr. Lancer, frowning deeply at the teacher. "I thought we had been through this song and dance number already." He told him, crossing his arms in front of his chest.

"Hear me out anyways, Daniel." Lancer said, ignoring his rather irate tone. He went back behind his desk, opening up a drawer, and pulled out a card, handing it to him. "This is a card to a clinic that specializes in the treatment of burn wounds. I thought that you should have it." He told him, thrusting the card towards him.

Danny opened his mouth to inform him that he didn't need it, but quickly shut it, reaching over and taking the card, pocketing it without a single word. It would look too strange, he thought, if he kept being so insistent about denying that he needed medical help. After all, he was well aware that a human with injuries of his severity probably wouldn't be able to move his arms and hands at all.

"Is that all?" Danny asked, staring down the balding teacher.

"Not quite. I collected this from Danielle and Jasmine's teachers. I hear they're both out sick today." Lancer said, handing Danny two separate file folders, each with one of the girl's names on it. He took them from them, sticking them quickly in his bag. "You know I'm just concerned about you, Daniel. In all honesty, I think you should be in the hospital, not up and about and moving around."

"I can't tell you anything other than the fact that I'm fine, Mr. Lancer." Danny said, his eyes narrowing. "I've got sick friends to visit, so if that's everything...?"

"Oh yes, I wouldn't want to keep you." Lancer told him, nodding his head. "Just... look into the clinic, okay? They do very good work."

"I will." Danny lied, and he knew the teacher knew if for a lie the moment it left his lips. "See you tomorrow, Mr. Lancer. I'll make sure Dani and Jazz get their work." He said, heading out the classroom door. Once he left the school building, it wasn't long until he caught up with Sam, who told him that Tucker was already heading towards Fenton Works.

"So what did he want?" Sam asked, glancing up at him, taking his hand in her own, clasping it tightly.

"Just to give me their schoolwork and hand me some dumb card for a burn clinic." Danny rolled his eyes. "I know he's concerned, but his concern is sort of wasted on me. He should be spending his time worrying about other students." He said, frowning. "I would have killed for a teacher like him back in the day, however, how's that for irony?" He asked, looking down at Sam.

"Sometimes life works in mysterious ways." Sam said. "Or in your case, the afterlife, I suppose." She mused. "I'm sure he'll lose interest eventually. You know that Jazz and Mrs. Fenton will probably want to talk to you today though, right? What are you going to be telling them?"

Danny shrugged his shoulders, shaking his head. "Honestly? I have the faintest. What comes to me, I guess. What I think it might be right for them to know. Dealing with Jazz is probably going to be the hardest, you know how obsessed she is with getting me into therapy or some shit like that. I saw a therapist once, and let me tell you, she didn't do me even the _slightest _bit of good."

"Yeah, but that was just one therapist." Sam noted, arching a brow. "All I'm saying Danny is that maybe you shouldn't shoot down the idea entirely. Having someone to talk to about your problems would do you a world of good, and don't you lie to me and say that you're problems are all over and done with, because I know better." She said. "Jazz knows that too, you know. You still have a lot of unresolved issues, and that's natural, given what you had to suffer through. I don't think anyone would blame you if you wanted to talk about them to someone."

"Yeah, like I could just go up to some random therapist and tell them my parents _vivisected _me." Danny said, rolling his eyes. "I'm sure that will end well."

"You know what I mean." Sam told him, nudging him in the side. She let go of his hand then, hurrying on to meet up with Tucker, who she had spotted waiting for them outside of Fenton Works. He grinned as he saw Danny trailing behind her.

"Hey! I thought it would be pretty awkward going in by myself. Now that all three of us are here, shall we go see how our little patient is doing?" Tucker asked.

"Yeah. Just remember, the only thing you know about Dani is that she's not feeling well." Danny reminded them, eying Tucker with the most suspicion. "They probably won't be happy if they found out that I told you two everything."

"Yeah, yeah, I'll remember, don't get your panties in a twist." Tucker said, rolling his eyes. He hurried up the steps, ringing the doorbell.

"Oh!" Maddie smiled when she finally came to the door, looking more than a little tired. She probably hadn't gotten any sleep last night, Danny realized. "All three of you are here. Are you here to see Dani and Jazz?"

"We heard they were sick, so we thought we would come by and say hi and wish them well." Sam lied, smiling at Maddie. "And I think Danny has their schoolwork with him too."

"Oh well, in that case, come on in." Maddie said, stepping aside, letting all three of them in the house. Danny grabbed the file folders from inside of his backpack, passing them over to Maddie with a small smile. "You know, I still do want to speak with you in a bit, Danny." She said lightly, before taking them from him. "Don't think that I've forgotten."

"I didn't imagine you would." Danny said, laughing a little. "Where's Dani, though?" He asked, glancing around. "And how is she feeling?"

"Well the good news is, Jack and I believe that we've figured out a way to properly stabilized her ghost half." Maddie said, dropping her voice very low, so that Sam and Tucker, who were exchanging some words with Jazz, who was sitting on the couch. No doubt that she knew full well that he had told Sam and Tucker, but she didn't have a problem with that herself, and would likely keep that piece of information from her mother. "So we think she'll be okay. She's in her room now, sleeping again."

"Well, that's good news." Danny smiled at her, stepping back a little. "I'm going to see Jazz, now. We can talk later." He told her, heading over towards the younger redheaded Fenton. "Hey Jazz."

"Hey Danny." Jazz looked up, grinning a little at him. "Sorry you guys came all this way to find out Dani's sleeping. I'd offer to wake her up, but I think she needs her rest. You're welcome to stick around until she wakes up though."

"I think we'll take you up on that offer." Sam said, taking a seat on the couch with her. She glanced between Jazz and Danny then. "I thought you two had to talk?" She asked them, which caused Danny to send her a small glare. She simply shrugged it off, knowing that he wasn't really mad at her.

"Oh yes." Jazz blinked. In all of the commotion, she had almost forgotten. Her parents had been hard at work ever since Danny left last night, trying to solve Dani's problem. Neither of them had gotten any sleep, she knew, and she would have to remember to encourage them to at least nap later in the evening, because she had the feeling that they would be pulling yet another all nighter again.

Getting to her feet, Jazz smiled over towards Danny. "Shall we go to my room, then?" She asked him, to which the boy grumpily agreed. He shoved his hands in the pockets of his aviator jacket, trailing behind her on the stairs. He lingered, just for a moment, in front of the blank slate of wall that Jazz now knew held his old room, and she vaguely realized that maybe it was why he didn't spend a lot of time on the second floor when he visited.

Once they were secure inside her room, Jazz turned to look at Danny, quickly embracing the (_considerably_) older boy in her arms. He was clearly startled by this action, quickly phasing out of it and stepping back, looking at Jazz in clear befuddlement. "Uh." He began, hand going up to the back of his neck. "What was that about?"

"I thought you needed one." Jazz said simply, taking a seat in her desk chair then. "You know that I've been looking into things, Danny. Not on purpose, mind you, it's just that... I found some things in the attic the other day when I was looking for things for mom to sell in the neighborhood yard sale." She told him. "Some interesting things."

"And since I know how very little you care for people beating around the bush, I'll just get straight to the point." Jazz said, folding her hands over her lap. "I know that you're family, Danny." She said simply. "And I have some idea of exactly what you went through, although it's a very vague one. Your little... confession last night was both enlightening and disturbing."

"What are you going to do now, ask me to make up for missing birthday presents?" Danny found himself quipping in spite of himself. "I'm afraid you're out of luck there, little missy."

"Oh shut up, I'm trying to be serious here, Danny." Jazz glowered at him. "Related or not, I haven't exactly changed what I think about you. Is that why you approached Dani and I though? As both Danny and Phantom?" She asked him directly. "Not to mention my parents. Dad always did say that you dropped by an awful lot when he was a child."

"Yeah." Danny said bluntly. "I just can't stay away. I guess maybe I just want to make sure that nobody else in the family goes through anything like what I had to." He admitted after a moment, turning away from her a bit. "Look Jazz, I don't know what to tell you. I don't feel like getting into my history with you, and I'm sure there's a lot of stuff in it that you don't really want to hear, either."

"Don't assume so quickly that I don't." Jazz said, shaking her head. "Yes, it is rather shocking to learn that my own great-great grandparents were not the saints that the town remembers them as being, but that doesn't meant that I'm not ready to listen to you, Danny. Anything you want to tell me, I'm all ears for, no matter what it is. We're family, after all, in the end, in some strange way." She smiled at him a little. "And the least I can do for family is to listen to their problems."

"What do you want me to tell you Jazz?" Danny asked, starting to pace, throwing up his hands. "Do you want to me to tell you how my mother didn't ever view me as her child, but as a weapon? A weapon with which to combat the ghostly menace- you know, they say your folks are obsessed with ghosts, but that's only because they haven't seen true obsession at work before." He told her, turning a sharp gaze on her. "Should I tell you that she hammered skills into my body from the time I was in preschool? I didn't have a childhood Jazz, that was a luxury afforded to everyone else in the world."

He shook his head. "Look, I don't want you to pity me or any of that crap, Jazz. I just want you to keep quiet and stop prying around already. I told you not to look into things for a reason, and you went and did it anyways. I _thought _I could trust you." Danny said, narrowing his eyes. "I just want to try and live a normal life for awhile, like I never had the chance to- why is everyone making this so difficult for me?"

"I'm sorry." Jazz said after a moment, looking down at her feet. "I just wanted to know. I just wanted to help." She told him, standing up. "Danny, I don't want to get in the way of your happiness. You deserve it. I'll stop looking into things, and I promise it this time, okay? But what I do want you to know is that I'm here for you, I'm here for you to talk about things with."

"Did you tell Dani about any of this?" Danny asked, frowning still.

"No. I won't, either. She's got too much on her mind as it is right now anyways. She might have questions of her own though, Danny. You realize that, right?" She asked him. "Be nice to her if she does ask."

"You don't have to tell me that." Danny said, scratching the back of his head. "Look Jazz, I do... I guess I do appreciate the fact that you're worried about me. As bad as that sounds, I'm just not used to it. I don't know how to _handle _people who want to help me." He told her, averting his eyes from her gaze. "This sort of thing would have been pretty damn nice to have happen while I was actually _alive_."

"It should have." Jazz said resolutely. "_Nobody _tried to help you, Danny?"

"When I was in elementary school, some of the teachers were concerned, but it never went beyond that." Danny told her finally, looking back towards her. "Of course, once ghosts became a big deal in Amity Park, which ironically, was my fault, that all got thrown out of the window as suddenly they became the two most important people in town." He said, lips twisting into a deep frown. "I guess you could say that I sealed my own fate. I was just worried that mom would snap after it turned out the portal didn't work, and I was worried she'd finally go after Miranda so I..."

"So you decided to check it out?" Jazz finished, putting a hand on his shoulder, giving it a soft squeeze. "You shouldn't blame yourself, Danny. Hindsight is twenty-twenty, after all. There's no way you could have ever known what that would lead to. At the time you were just worried about your little sister." She said, giving him a small smile. "You're a good big brother, Danny, and I don't think you should forget that."

"I know, I know." Danny said. "Look Jazz, if that's all, I'm going to go see if Dani is awake and maybe hopefully dodge your mother. I think she's got some ideas floating around in her head too." He said, grumbling a little. "Not sure what I'm going to do about _that _one. I suppose I'll figure something out though."

"I'm sure you will." Jazz assured him. "I don't think mom would be too off put if she learned that you were Phantom, Danny. I think she'd accept it after a few moments. That's the sort of person that she is. I could... discourage her from asking for any samples, if you ever need me to. I can imagine how you feel about that." She said, watching Danny cringe as the very word was even brought up. "But Danny? Can I ask you one thing at least?"

"I guess?" Danny hesitated. "It depends on what the one thing is." He said.

"Why was your mother so obsessed with ghosts to begin with?" Jazz asked. "It just seems like there's a story there, and nothing I looked into gave me any hints as to what it might be. Was she just always crazy?"

"No." Danny shook his head. "She went crazy, I think. She had reasons... although it doesn't make what she did any less excusable." He told her. "She was obsessed with ghosts after her little brother was taken away by one. That's what dad told me once, and I never got anymore details out of him about it other than that her little brother looked like me. She got worse as I got older- and that's probably why. I think at one point she wasn't even able to tell me and her dead brother apart anymore."

"She became so obsessed with keeping you safe from ghosts, and by extension, filling the gap in her heart that her brother left, that she completely lost sight of her goals in the first place." Jazz mused aloud. "And ended up becoming a monster. I don't understand though- why didn't your father try and stop her?"

"Well." Danny paused, giving Jazz a long look. "That's why he's the worse monster of the two. He didn't even have insanity to excuse any of his actions."

"Even if he did, it wouldn't be an excuse." Jazz frowned, chewing lightly on her lip. All of this made her blood boil, to be honest, and yet it was true that there was no longer anything that she could do about it. The fact that she was related to these people... made her feel more than a little unclean. The fact that she was also related to Phantom, who had risen above all of that, and had become a hero for the people of Amity Park, even while they tried to cast him out on both sides?

_That _made her feel a little better.

She liked to think that she took more after that side of the family, than she did her great-great grandparents. If she got a chance to ever see them face to face, even as ghosts, Jazz would throw out all of her distaste for ghost hunting just for a moment, long enough to give the both of them a very well deserved punch to the face.

"That's true." Danny's voice broke her thoughts, and he reached out, ruffling her hair, grinning from ear to ear as she grumbled, swatting his hand away, going to fix it. "You're a good kid though, Jazz, even if you are also a nosy little brat." He told her.

"Oh shut up. I don't want to be lectured by someone who looks around my age." She told him. "Besides, you know I don't like it when you ruffle my hair." She grumbled. Phantom had been doing that to her ever since she was a little girl, and now that Danny wasn't pretending they were two separate people around her anymore, it would seem that she would be subjected to that while he was in human form as well. "I'm a mature and intelligent woman, I'm not a little kid anymore."

"To me, _everyone's_ a little kid." Danny shrugged his shoulders, grinning from ear to ear- before cringing and realizing that he had just referenced his own age. From the smug look on Jazz's face, he knew he'd been caught at it too. "Okay fine. You win this round, Jazz." He held up his hands. "Look, I really do need to check up on Dani, though." He told her, heading towards her door, before stopping, giving her a pointed look. "No more being nosy, promise?"

"Promise." Jazz grinned a little, watching him leave.

Danny headed across the hall, to Dani's room, where he carefully creaked the door open. The lights were out, but it didn't matter much to him, as he could make out her quietly sleeping form on the bed. She was drooling into her pillow, clutching at it a little, but otherwise seeming rather peaceful, so in the end, Danny decided that he wasn't going to bother her. She had been through a lot in the past several hours, and it was best that she got what peace and relaxation she could.

He hoped he'd be able to train her to use her powers properly- he was a little more than worried that he would turn into his mother. Would he even be able to hold back properly? He didn't want to hurt Dani or cause her stress of any kind, but she did need to learn how to fight, and fast.

"Danny?" Maddie's soft voice startled him a little, she was using hushed tones not to wake her daughter. "How's Dani?" She asked him, peering into the room herself.

"She's asleep." He whispered back. "I thought I would just let her rest. She looks like she's having a good dream." He told her, slowly shutting the door, before glancing down at the petite woman. "How goes work?"

"It's only been about fifteen minutes, there's only so much progress one can make in that time period. Jazz convinced Jack to take a nap, though, he's sleeping in the lab. I'm supposed to wake him in twenty minutes or so." She said. "Probably we'll be pulling another all nighter. I think we're close though, very close. All of our simulations indicate that the method we're using _should _work."

"Always good news." Danny smiled a little, nodding to her a little before he tried to slip past her, only to find her small hand catching on his arm. He winced a little, realizing that he had been caught, and he glanced back towards her, a sheepish look on his face. "Not getting out of that little chat, am I?"

"Not a chance, young man." Maddie said, shaking her head. "I would very much like to know what your connection is to Phantom, Danny."

His cringe probably told Maddie far more than he actually wanted her to know.


End file.
